


We'll Reinvent Love

by there_must_be_a_lock



Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon What Canon, Fluff, M/M, Ryden, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2019-02-14 09:35:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13004940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/there_must_be_a_lock/pseuds/there_must_be_a_lock
Summary: “He remembers back when he was younger, and he would scrape his elbow, and because he hadn’t yet started these daily screaming matches with his mom, she would place a band-aid over it, ever so gently, and then an even gentler kiss on top of that. And because Ryan looks like his world is one big scraped elbow at the moment, Brendon leans forward and kisses him, butterfly-soft, and pulls away before Ryan gets a chance to do it first.”





	1. 1/10

**Author's Note:**

> Migrated from my old Livejournal account, livinglifeloud.
> 
> Total disregard for canon.

It starts on one of those days, one of the days when Ryan inexplicably can’t make it to practice and the others exchange looks and mutter excuses for him. It’s been just four months, maybe, since Brendon joined the band, and seniority demands that he let it slide, but he can’t, not any more, not after he’s convinced his mother to let him go to practice only after an hour-long argument that’s left his throat raw and probably not up to singing anyway.   
  
There’s no answer when he rings the doorbell, so he rings again. No car in the driveway, no lights on upstairs. No sign of Ryan.  
  
There isn’t much hope when he dials, but Ryan picks up after just two rings.   
  
“Yeah, sorry, something came up, my grandma came over for dinner,” comes the listless voice on the other end. It would be a terrible lie even if Brendon wasn’t standing on his front steps with a clear view through the window into the (empty) dining room. Brendon hangs up and opens the door.   
  
Ryan’s lying on his side, facing the wall, when Brendon slips into his room.   
  
“You’re an asshole,” is quiet and muffled by the pillow.   
  
“You’re the one who just doesn’t show up with no excuse.”   
  
“I told you, my grandma came for dinner,” Ryan grits out, with a dead laugh.   
  
He finally turns over then to look at Brendon, and even from across the room Brendon can see the tear tracks. Something inside him twists, hard. He shuts the door behind him and sits down on the bed, cautiously, delicately, so as not to break the fragile birdlike creature that is watching his every move with too-big eyes. Ryan doesn’t shatter, so Brendon stretches out, lays his head on the pillow, and breaks every boundary that Ryan had set in their relationship.   
  
He was the untouchable one from when Brendon met him, distant, quiet except to correct an unsteady rhythm or a false note. And after practice he just disappeared, while Spencer and Brent asked Brendon if he wanted to play video games and he tried not to be too happy to hang out with them, to have someone to hang out with. And now, Brendon’s immersed in Ryan, in his pictures lining the faded blue walls, in his smell that rises off the pillowcase like barely-there aftershave and summer thunderstorms.   
  
“You smell good,” says Brendon, because this is suddenly ten thousand times more important than the barely-dried tears on Ryan’s baby-round cheeks.  
  
“My dad’s an alcoholic,” says Ryan, and another tear gathers in the corner of his eyes and drips over the bridge of his nose onto the pillow, and Brendon falls in love with him just a little bit.   
  
“Oh,” is his deeply sensitive answer.   
  
“He was drunk. He drove off. I couldn’t get a ride.” His voice is barely a breath, for all its matter-of-factness.   
  
“I have a car,” says Brendon.   
  
“Yeah.”   
  
There’s a pause while Brendon tries to figure out what that means, but he’s finding it pretty hard to think with Ryan looking so lost and broken and so very, very close to falling apart.   
  
He remembers back when he was younger, and he would scrape his elbow and, because he hadn’t yet started these daily screaming matches with his mom, she would place a band-aid over it, ever so gently, and then an even gentler kiss on top of that.   
  
And because Ryan looks like his world is one big scraped elbow at the moment, Brendon leans forward and kisses him, butterfly-soft, and pulls away before Ryan gets a chance to do it first.  
  
“What was that for?” Ryan asks, startled out of his brokenness.   
  
“Trying to make it feel better,” mumbles Brendon, blushing because it sounds a lot stupider when he actually thinks about it.   
  
“Oh.”   
  
And suddenly Ryan is kissing him back, just as soft, his lips pillowing between Brendon’s in a way that makes him understand why they invented kissing in the first place. He can’t help but gasp, just a little, when Ryan pulls him closer and their hips collide, and at the ragged intake of breath everything just sort of speeds up. Ryan’s hands are suddenly tangled in his hair, and Ryan’s leg is suddenly hooked between his thighs, and Ryan’s teeth are nipping and sucking at his lower lip, and Ryan’s body is impossibly thin in his arms like he might crack at any second.   
  
There’s no frailty in that kiss, though. That kiss is desperate and needy and getting deeper by the second, till Brendon can barely tell where he ends and Ryan begins.   
  
Ryan’s shirt is riding up ever so slightly, and the pale sliver of skin that peeks out is burning hot. Brendon puts his hand there wonderingly, slides his hand from Ryan’s waist to his chest to his back and his waist again, and Ryan reaches impatiently for the hem and just slips the damn thing off. It’s only then that Brendon realizes he’s panting, and when he takes his own shirt off too and reaches for Ryan again it’s a collision, an earthquake, it can’t be just a kiss because he’s sure you can’t feel things like this from just kissing.   
  
There are lightning bolts in Brendon’s stomach and crashes of thunder in his ribcage. And when Ryan rolls onto his back and pulls Brendon on top of him, their hips grind together in a way that pulls a whine, a plea, deep from Ryan’s throat, and fireworks are exploding behind Brendon’s eyes.   
  
“Touch me,” breathes Ryan, and without pausing to think about how Ryan is a guy and he really shouldn’t be touching guys, he grinds their hips together one more time (which, wow) before pulling away just enough to fumble with the belt buckle.   
  
Their eyes lock as Brendon slides one trembling hand into Ryan’s boxers, and his breathing is rough and ragged before Brendon’s done any more than run his fingers tentatively up the shaft. When he begins stroking in earnest it doesn’t feel wrong, it feels familiar and right in a way girls never have, and there are these gorgeous groaning sounds pouring out of Ryan that make Brendon remember how achingly hard his own dick already is.   
  
One of Ryan’s hands is pressed into Brendon’s neck, as if scared he’s going to run away, and the other is clutching and twisting in the sheets, but their eyes are locked together, and Brendon’s never seen anything as beautiful as those shocked, scared, vulnerable eyes rolling back in Ryan’s head as he lets out a noise that might me a whimper and might be a moan. He leans down to kiss Ryan, and can’t help but gasp out “Please,” against those rosy lips, and suddenly Ryan is touching him and he forgets just about everything.   
  
There’s electricity shooting through his brain, sparks running up his spine, shivers starting deep in the pit of his stomach, and all it takes is the “O” Ryan’s mouth makes when he comes and the hot sticky ribbons over his hand, and he practically blacks out with his release.   
  
Brendon’s hand is resting on Ryan’s waist when their breathing begins to slow, his nose barely brushing Ryan’s, lying on Ryan’s too-skinny chest with their come sticky between them. When Ryan’s eyes flutter open, Brendon greets them with a faint smile.   
  
They settle back into their original positions, lying side by side, except Brendon can’t even begin to describe how things have changed.


	2. 2/10

He’s not sure whether he should talk or not. He’s not sure what to say. He’s not sure whether Ryan cares. He still can’t believe that he’s actually here. And since it’s actually pretty nice, just lying here in silence, running his fingers over Ryan’s soft skin, he lets the silence stretch for five minutes, which for Brendon is a long time.   
  
“I’m not the only one who wants you to be happy. You know that, right?” he says finally, his thumb making circles on Ryan’s ridiculously pale shoulder.   
  
It’s like a door opens behind those eyes, like Brendon’s words have broken something inside him but in the best possible way. Ryan’s mouth pulls up at the side in an almost-smile, but he still says, “You should probably go.” Still, Brendon feels like he might have helped a little.  
  
And then they have to find their shirts again, and Ryan gets a damp washcloth from the bathroom to clean them up, and Brendon doesn’t know whether to kiss him goodbye or not. Ryan walks him downstairs, and though he’s still smiling ever so slightly, Brendon thinks the time for kissing might have passed.   
  
“I can, you know, give you a ride if you ever need one,” Brendon offers, half outside already.   
  
“Thanks,” says Ryan, as he closes the door.   
  
“See you tomorrow,” says Brendon feebly.   
  
And that’s it, except not really. Ryan is different. He occasionally smiles a little when Brent cracks one of his stupid jokes, and he occasionally joins them after practice to play video games, and the songs actually start to sound like songs because Ryan makes it to practice a lot more often now that Brendon always shows up, without being asked, to drive him.   
  
The four of them start hanging out, not just for practices but for movie marathons and food fights and drives in Brendon’s heap of a car where they turn on music as loud as it will go and sing along. Brendon starts to think that maybe he has friends, and it’s pretty nice, especially when summer rolls around and they get to practice more and do homework less.   
  
But he hasn’t kissed Ryan again. And every time he goes to church he thinks about how incredibly right it felt that afternoon, and the doubt that had clouded his mind before is now an impenetrable fog, and before he knows it he’s screaming at his mother “I fucking hate you! I’m leaving!” and she’s screaming back “Good! Feel free to stay away.”   
  
So he moves out. And life gets so, so difficult.   
  
He has to work now, pretty much constantly. And there’s nothing much in his fridge, and the shower doesn’t work right, and his couch has a hole in it, and there’s no TV, and he never thought there would be so much bill-paying involved in adulthood, and he’s tempted, so many times, to just give in and crawl home and beg forgiveness, but some cold angry determined place inside him forbids that.   
  
The guys come over at first. They bring pizza and sometimes beer and they try not to stare at the bare walls or the way the only furniture is the couch. But Brendon doesn’t want them to pity him, and so he stops inviting them. Sometimes they all stay over at Spencer’s place, and despite the flash of pain Brendon always feels when Mrs. Smith asks them if they want anything, those are good nights. Better, at least.  
  
Because it’s painful in ways he can’t describe to come back to the apartment alone each night. It’s dark and sticky-hot with no air conditioning, and sometimes he microwaves some ramen but usually he just goes to sleep hungry. His bed is lumpy and the walls are too bare and too close, and there’s always a twisting knot of fear and hunger and exhaustion pulling at the pit of his stomach, and he cries himself to sleep more often than not.   
  
He hasn’t been alone with Ryan since that afternoon, but after three months he decides that needs to change. He’s tossing and turning as usual, and the crappy old clock on his nightstand says it’s half past midnight, and he’s sick of being lonely, so he picks up his phone and dials.   
  
“Hi,” says Ryan, and Brendon can tell that he wasn’t asleep either.   
  
“Want to go for a drive?” he asks.   
  
“Sure.”   
  
Ryan’s waiting in the driveway when Brendon pulls up. His eyes are bright in the headlights and Brendon’s reminded forcefully of a deer.   
  
“Couldn’t sleep?” says Ryan. Brendon shrugs and asks him the same question.   
  
Ryan rubs his guitar calluses almost unconsciously as he answers. “I was sitting in the treehouse writing all night, I didn’t want to go inside.”   
  
“Your dad…” Brendon’s words trail off. Ryan nods.   
  
They drive, and it’s silent except for the slightly worrying buzz from the engine. Brendon doesn’t really think about where he’s headed, but he ends up at the outskirts of town, where the houses stop and the desert starts and the highway stretches out in one long straight line to the horizon.   
  
They pull over and lie down on the hood of Brendon’s car, staring up at the stars. With the light pollution and the smog from Vegas, they’re only barely visible. Brendon wishes he lived somewhere else. Then again, if he lived somewhere else he wouldn’t have met Ryan, so.   
  
“I think I just remembered how to breathe,” says Ryan, and Brendon knows what he means. The mess of worry in his stomach is uncurling, and he’s the closest to happy he’s been since he moved out. He takes in a lungful of air, and it’s not the close stuffy air of his apartment, but the rapidly cooling late-July night air of the desert, and he gets even closer.   
  
“Yeah,” he whispers.   
  
Ryan starts singing something, singing low and quiet under his breath, like he barely notices what he’s doing.   
  
“ _The moon is full here every night  
and I can bathe here in his light.  
The leaves will bury every year  
and no one knows I'm gone._”  
  
Brendon forgets sometimes how much he loves Ryan’s voice. The melody spirals up into the sky, and Ryan stops.   
  
“What’s that?” Brendon asks. Like it matters.   
  
“Tom Waits.”   
  
“Pretty.”   
  
“Seemed appropriate.”  
  
Brendon wishes he could argue with that. In a way, it would be nice if anyone knew, or cared, that they were gone. But in a way he kind of likes having Ryan all to himself.   
  
“Do you get lonely every night?” Ryan asks.   
  
“Not just at night.”   
  
“Me too. I’m glad you called.”   
  
Brendon thinks maybe he’s been selfish lately. He forgets, sometimes, that he’s not the only one with family problems.   
  
“I’m glad you’re glad,” he replies, maybe a little too honestly.   
  
“Your turn to sing now,” says Ryan abruptly. And he’s looking at Brendon expectantly, and who can deny those eyes? So he sings the first thing that pops into his head.   
  
“ _I lit out from Reno, I was trailed by twenty hounds_ ,” he starts with a grin, and that’s all it takes for Ryan to recognize the song and laugh a little and join in.   
  
They’re sitting in the desert, skin blue under the silvery full moon, singing the Grateful Dead at the top of their lungs, and Brendon isn’t close to happy any more, he’s all the way there and then some. They laugh as they finish the song. “ _If I get home before daylight, just might get some sleep tonight._ ” And Brendon in his happiness hits the last note just a bit too high, so their voices are discordant and maybe a bit too loud for the stillness of the desert.   
  
He lets out a contented breath and settles more comfortably against the windshield. He could fall asleep right there, but Ryan checks his watch and says a little sadly that he should be getting home. So Brendon nods, looks around at the desert one more time, and gets back in the car.   
  
They pull up to Ryan’s driveway.   
  
“Thanks,” says Ryan, but then he actually looks at his house, and even in the moonlight Brendon can see that something’s wrong.   
  
“What?”   
  
“He’s still awake,” says Ryan. And he’s right, the living room light is on.   
  
“Stay with me then,” says Brendon instantly. He doesn’t expect Ryan to accept, but since when is Ryan Ross predictable?   
  
They don’t kiss. They fall asleep fully clothed, and the bed is still lumpy and the walls are still too bare and too close, but Brendon isn’t lonely any more. With that warm bony rain-and-cinnamon-scented body next to him, Brendon’s never been farther from lonely in his life. 


	3. 3/10

They’re signed. Jesus Christ, they’re fucking signed.   
  
Brendon can’t sit still on the plane. Ryan, next to him, is writing, of course. Spencer’s asleep. Brent is reading. Brendon fidgets, stares out the window, feels like he could just jump out the emergency exit and fly all the way to Maryland himself.   
  
They’re staying in a hotel. The label is putting them up in a fucking hotel. Brendon still can’t believe it.   
  
They have two rooms, joined by a door, and the first thing Brendon does is jump on the bed for a good five minutes. Ryan perches on the other bed and stares up at him with one of those trademark almost-smiles.   
  
That night, they sleep in their separate beds, and Ryan is so damn close to him, but there’s no way he’s brave enough to close that tiny gap and crawl into Ryan’s bed and maybe wrap an arm around him and spend the night smelling his hair instead of sleeping. So he’s alone.   
  
They start recording the very next day. Brendon stands in front of the microphone wearing these ridiculously huge headphones, and he sings Ryan’s words for all he’s got, wishing they could tell him something about Ryan he doesn’t already know. He gets the gist of it, angst and cheating and there’s a couple songs he’s sure are about Ryan’s dad. But still, he Just. Doesn’t. Understand. But he thinks maybe that’s one of the reasons he loves Ryan.   
  
They celebrate their first day of recording by smoking a lot of weed, and then they watch a movie and go to bed. Brendon can’t sleep. He’s sitting in a chair, looking out the window at the stars (they’re brighter here) when he first hears Ryan whimper. He whips his head around, and Ryan’s twitching a little, and in the faint red glow from the digital clock, Brendon can see that his face is all twisted up. Ryan cries out again, and because it’s making him hurt to see Ryan hurt, he pads softly over to the bed, his heart pounding.   
  
“Ry,” he says, shaking Ryan’s shoulder gently.   
  
“No,” gasps Ryan, and sits bolt upright. His pale skin is gleaming with sweat, his hair is sticking up in impossible spikes, and Brendon thinks he’s perfect.   
  
“Nightmare?” whispers Brendon, sitting on the bed, and then Ryan’s hugging him way too tightly and sobbing into his shoulder.   
  
He’s reminded again of how fragile Ryan is. There’s no muscle, no protective padding, just thin skin stretched tight over thin bones, and the world’s way too harsh for such a delicate person. And right now, Ryan’s curling against his chest, burrowing into his neck, and Brendon wants him to stay there forever where he’s safe, where Brendon can fight off his demons for him.   
  
Ryan stops crying after a while, just shudders there in Brendon’s arms, chest heaving and breath shaking. Brendon lies down, wiggles his way under the covers, and pulls Ryan back against his chest. And Ryan doesn’t protest, just squirms back against him and yawns, so Brendon wraps one arm tight around his waist and inhales happily.   
  
“Thanks Bren,” whispers Ryan.  
  
The next night, without asking or being asked, Ryan crawls into Brendon’s bed, snuggling close, like it’s the most normal and natural thing in the world. Same thing the next night, and the next. And every night Brendon falls asleep smiling.   
  
But suddenly, it’s their final night in the hotel, their album is recorded, and they’ll be flying out the next morning for a “Meet Panic!” party at Pete Wentz’s house. Which is kind of incredible to think about, really.   
  
Spencer and Brent go out with one of the recording techs. Brendon and Ryan stay in. They order room service and a movie, and they lie in Brendon’s bed and mute the movie and talk.   
  
“What’s your favorite word?” asks Ryan, and it’s such a Ryan question that Brendon laughs.   
  
“Supercalifragiilisticexpialidocious,” he says, maybe a little flippantly and maybe a little untruthfully. “What’s your favorite time of day?”   
  
“Late afternoon in summer and fall, when the light is kind of golden and peaceful,” says Ryan lazily. “Favorite song lyrics?”   
  
“There Is A Light That Never Goes Out, by the Smiths. Place you want to visit?”   
  
“Paris. Most embarrassing memory?”   
  
“Truth or dare in fifth grade. I can’t even tell you, it’s too traumatic. Um…I can’t think of anything.”   
  
Ryan smiles and worms his way closer, so his head is tucked under Brendon’s chin. Brendon closes his eyes, trying to just absorb as much of that smell as he can. Almost unconsciously, he rubs his foot gently against Ryan’s, and Ryan looks up at him, those big eyes shining in the flickering light from the TV. Brendon reaches out carefully and pushes a piece of Ryan’s hair behind his ear. He thinks maybe he can hear his own heart beating.   
  
And then Ryan kisses him.   
  
Holy shit, Ryan just kissed him.  
  
 _Wow._  
  
He kisses back, marveling at how soft Ryan’s lips are and how perfectly the two of them just fit together like the puzzle pieces in that song he’s embarrassed to admit he likes. And he really must have it bad, because it’s been years since kissing made him think of song lyrics.   
  
But it’s Ryan, so maybe he should have expected that.   
  
Ryan’s hand is cupping Brendon’s cheek, and his thumb is stroking the skin there in sweet little circles, and a tiny part of Brendon’s mind wonders idly if this means he’s gay but then he stores that question for some other time. They pull apart for a moment, rest their foreheads together so their lips are only barely separated and their breath mingles, and Ryan traces his fingers down from Brendon’s cheekbone to his jaw to his mouth, running an index finger gently over the bottom lip, and Brendon doesn’t think anyone’s ever touched him so  _nice_ ly. There’s no other word for it, it’s just  _nice_ , ice cream nice and fluffy puppy nice and finding rare records in secondhand stores nice. But then Ryan replaces his finger with his mouth, and that’s just as wonderful.   
  
The kiss isn’t demanding. It’s not deep or passionate and it’s not turning Brendon on. It’s just lazy and soft and curious and intimate beyond words. Brendon’s tongue is curling between Ryan’s lips, exploring every dip and curve of his mouth, and his hands are exploring Ryan’s torso, and he can’t believe how lucky he is to be allowed to touch Ryan.   
  
He’s just so smooth and soft, Brendon can’t help himself. He’s stroking every bit of Ryan he can find, the hollow behind his ear and the tiny little hairs at the nape of his neck and the protrusion of his collarbone, and Ryan’s sliding his hand under Brendon’s shirt and rubbing gently at his stomach and chest, leaving tingles wherever his hands go.   
  
Brendon rolls over on his back and pulls Ryan on top of him, and he barely notices the weight but the warmth is so, so perfect. It’s like he’s got his own little blanket of warm bony guitarist. And those hipbones really should hurt, but instead they’re kinda turning him on, and when Ryan shifts so he can kiss Brendon easier the movement sparks some delicious friction, and, yeah, Brendon’s definitely turned on now.   
  
And then the door handle rattles and Ryan practically jumps off him, quick fumbles for the remote and takes off the mute, and Brendon bounds over to the bathroom while Ryan goes to open the door, because it would be a very, very bad thing for anyone to see his boner right now.   
  
“Hey,” hears Brendon as he leans against the closed bathroom door. Spencer and Brent are back. Shit.  
  
He shuffles over to the mirror, looks at his own flushed face and puffy lips and touseled hair and confused eyes. Shit.   
  
Even with his thirty-minute shower, Brent and Spencer are still there when Brendon emerges from the bathroom. They’re all settled on Brendon’s bed, eating chips and laughing at the movie. Brendon avoids eye contact with Ryan, just sits on the bed next to Brent and tries to act normal. This shouldn’t be this difficult. I mean, it happened before, right? And they were fine then.  
  
But he and Ryan don’t say a word to each other for the rest of the night, and Ryan sleeps in his own bed, and when Brendon’s sitting awake in the chair again and he hears Ryan whimpering, he stays put and tries to ignore how much it hurts to hear Ryan hurting. 


	4. 4/10

Ryan’s still avoiding eye contact the next morning. Brendon’s too nervous to force him, so they exchange two sentences before landing in Chicago:  
  
Ryan says “Can you pass the salt?” at breakfast.  
  
Brendon says “’Scuse me” when he needs to go to the bathroom on the plane.  
  
That’s it, and Brendon can’t stand it. He wants to be close again, he wants to be cuddled up with Ryan talking about stupid insignificant things, he wants this awful distance to just go the fuck away.   
  
Well, what he really wants is for Ryan to love him, but, baby steps.   
  
Pete Wentz kind of looks like a chipmunk, Brendon thinks. But then he realizes you’re not supposed to think those kinds of things about your boss, even if Pete doesn’t really seem like a boss at all. In fact, he’s pretty cool, although he definitely sits too close to Ryan when they all play Halo.   
  
Other people start to arrive around ten. Brendon loses track of Ryan among a crowd of hands to shake and names to remember. He fails (epically) at remembering most of the names.   
  
Around 11:30, people finally stop coming in, and Brendon wanders off to find some fresh air.   
  
The balcony is mercifully deserted, and from there he can look out at the glittering expanse of Chicago and breathe peacefully. This isn’t his thing, this whole party, shaking hands, remembering names, promoting the band thing. He doesn’t have the big technical words to describe the sound of their new album, and he has no interest whatsoever in getting shitfaced and dancing with one of the thousand people who’ve asked him, and he’d much rather just sit here and pout for a while.   
  
Brendon’s in full pout mode when he’s interrupted by two loud (fucking tall, when he turns around) bodies.   
  
“Travie, I told you, you’ve gotta stop this shit,” says one of them. The other, “Travie,” rolls his eyes and notices Brendon.   
  
“Hey, man, you’re pouting,” he says. Brendon thinks he’s pretty perceptive for someone who’s obviously on all sorts of drugs.   
  
“Travie, go drink some water,” snaps the other one. Travie shrugs, aims a sleepy smile at Brendon, and shambles away.   
  
“Sorry about that,” says the other boy irritably. “I’m William, by the way. You must be one of the new kids, I think Pete wants us to tour with you guys in a couple months.”   
  
“Brendon.”   
  
“Brendon.” William leans his elbows on the balcony and stares down at Chicago broodingly. “Don’t you hate it when you can’t fix the people you love?” he says, probably rhetorically.   
  
“Yeah.” Brendon answers him anyway.   
  
“I mean, you’re here, right? And they should just fucking realize that and fucking lean on you once in a while. And love you back, you know? Because it’s just not fucking fair for you to make all this effort and be all supportive and shit if they’re not going to take advantage of it,” William’s not properly explaining himself, but Brendon thinks of everything Ryan never says about his dad, and he understands. Painfully, achingly, completely understands.   
  
He looks, almost involuntarily, back into the living room, where Ryan’s talking animatedly to Pete. This is Ryan’s thing. His band is starting to take off, and he’s finally getting away, and Brendon can see the steely determination behind that smile, the drive to make this work because, really, it’s all he’s got. He’s suddenly terrified that his voice isn’t going to be enough to make Ryan’s dreams come true.   
  
He snaps back into reality, and realizes that William followed his gaze and is staring at Ryan. He looks back at Brendon with a smile, and if Pete’s a chipmunk, William’s definitely a cat.   
  
“He’s cute,” purrs William. Brendon wants to cry. William’s staring at him and smirking, and Brendon’s sure he’s about to say something but he hears a screech instead.   
  
“Bilvy!”   
  
“Gabanti!” squeals William, and if Brendon wasn’t sure before, he’s now thoroughly convinced that William’s gay.   
  
There’s a guy in a neon trucker hat bear-hugging William, and William’s laughing and jumping up so his legs are wrapped around the new guy’s waist. Yep, definitely gay.   
  
“Brendon, this is Gabe,” says William when he finally, like, dismounts, and his smile is ten times brighter than any of the lights spread out below them.   
  
“Hi,” says Gabe, his arm snaked around William’s nonexistent waist.   
  
“Hi, I’m Brendon,” says Brendon, a little scared by all the smiling going on here. He still kind of wants to cry.   
  
“Well, Brendon, me and Gabe are going to go get wasted and catch up and cuddle, but it was nice to meet you, and I guess I’ll see you in a couple months. Um, and, by the way, you totally need to make a move.” William points with his chin in Ryan’s direction. He and Gabe giggle, and they walk arm-in-arm back inside, while William noses happily into Gabe’s neck. Brendon wants  _that_.   
  
He takes a deep breath and goes back inside. He can’t see Ryan right away; the apartment’s too full. But he does see Spencer and Brent on the couch playing Halo, which comes as no surprise whatsoever.   
  
“Hey, have you seen Ry?” says Brendon in Spencer’s ear.   
  
“Nope.”   
  
“Bathroom. Upstairs,” grunts Brent, and then, “Fuckshit,” as somebody kills him.  
  
Brendon rolls his eyes and sets off through the crowd. Spencer and Brent would bond instantly with all the other video game freaks on the label. And Pete would have one of those ritzy apartments with two floors.   
  
But he’s climbing the stairs now and his heart is sounding like the drum beat on “The Only Difference,” all loud and jangly, and he’s having definite trouble breathing.   
  
He can’t find whatever fucking bathroom Brent was talking about. He pokes around the hallway a bit, finds one bathroom that’s empty, and about three guest bedrooms.   
  
He gives up, collapses on the bed in what must be the master bedroom, and lets the tears fall. Tears for everything. For Ryan, for the axe that rips into Brendon’s chest whenever he thinks about Ryan, for all the shit Ryan’s been through that he won’t talk about, for the sheer terror of actually being here and answering questions about “his” band and realizing that he’s going to have to do real interviews soon, for the impossibility of it all, because there’s no way they’re going to make it big and instead they’re going to end up arguing all the time and splitting up and then Brendon’ll have to work at Smoothie Hut all his life. And, well, shit.   
  
It’s all catching up to him, and he’s a howling sobbing blob of misery, coming apart at the seams on Pete Wentz's bed, when he hears the quiet little “Hey.”   
  
It’s Ryan. Of course it’s Ryan. And there’s a door next to him that probably leads to a bathroom, and Brendon has this absurd urge to laugh.  
  
“What’s going on?” says Ryan softly, still standing awkwardly by the door.  
  
“I’m scared shitless,” says Brendon, but the last syllable comes out more like a sob.   
  
He’s got his face buried in the comforter again, so he feels rather than sees Ryan sit down next to him.   
  
“I’m not so good at this, but, uh…hug?” Ryan mumbles. Brendon’s wrapped around him a heartbeat later.   
  
“I’m scared out of my fucking mind,” says Brendon into Ryan’s neck.   
  
“Duh,” snorts Ryan.   
  
“You really suck at the comforting thing,” Brendon says, wiping away a couple tears.   
  
“Sorry. But I just meant, me too. So much.” Ryan’s rubbing circles into Brendon’s back, like he’s trying.   
  
Brendon can’t help it. He plants a whisper of a kiss on the soft skin between Ryan’s neck and shoulder. Ryan freezes. Brendon nuzzles his way up Ryan’s neck, brushes his lips against Ryan’s jaw, and he can hear the breath catch in Ryan’s throat.   
  
When their lips finally meet it’s sucking and biting and fucking  _fire_ , hands twisted in hair, falling back onto the bed, legs awkwardly tangled. Brendon could get addicted to this.   
  
But Ryan pushes him away after what feels like just a second, pushes him roughly like he means it, and scrambles off the bed.   
  
“No,” Ryan croaks. Brendon’s heart might have just stopped.   
  
“We can’t. We can’t fucking do this,” says Ryan, with just the slightest crack in his voice. “The band- it just- We can’t.” He shoots one last helpless look at Brendon, and strides out the door.   
  
“I love you,” Brendon whispers brokenly, but Ryan’s long gone. 


	5. 5/10

Brendon pulls himself together, because he has to. He pushes Ryan into this little dark corner of his brain where he doesn’t have to deal with it, and he splashes his face with cold water, and he goes downstairs and dances with everyone who asks him.   
  


*****

  
  
They go home the next day, and Brendon moves into Spencer’s guest bedroom because there’s no way he’s going back to that apartment for the next couple months. Brendon’s life is work, and band practice, and the occasional radio interview. Their album comes out in September and nobody buys it. Pete still says they’re doing pretty well.   
  


*****

  
  
“Sure you don’t want to come?” says Spencer, awkward at the door. “Grandma’s sweet potatoes are to die for.”   
  
“No thanks,” says Brendon, forcing a smile.   
  
“Spencer!” shouts Mrs. Smith from downstairs. Spencer half-smiles at him and leaves.   
  
Brendon spends Thanksgiving with his guitar, taking all his sadness out of his head and letting it go through his fingers. He thinks this should feel less like home than it does. But really, who is he kidding? Music is the only home he’s ever had.   
  


*****

  
  
“Dude, this is fucking sick,” says Brent, looking around the kitchen of their brand new tour bus.   
  
Brendon and Spencer sprint for the bunk area. They have a brief tussle over the top bunk before realizing there’s a top bunk on each side of the hallway.   
  
Ryan’s just staring, eyes huge and happy and disbelieving, like if he touches anything it’ll all melt away.   
  
They’re electric, that first night. Apparently somebody did buy their album, because there are people in the first row screaming Ryan’s words along with Brendon. The adrenaline rush is the best thing he’s ever felt.   
  
Well, maybe the second-best thing, but he’s not thinking about that.  
  


*****

  
  
“Do you want the last Red Bull?” is the first thing Ryan says directly to him.   
  
“No, you can have it, it’s okay,” Brendon says, too quickly.   
  
“No, seriously, if you want it…”   
  
“Take it.”   
  
Ryan puts it back in the fridge.   
  
It takes about two weeks of sharing the same breathing space to make things okay, but afterward, it’s like nothing was ever wrong.   
  
Exactly fifteen days in, Brendon falls asleep in the back lounge, and when he wakes up, his head is resting on Ryan’s stomach and his legs are draped over Spencer’s knees, and the first thing he thinks isn’t  _God Ryan smells good_ , it’s  _Shit my neck hurts_.   
  
“Morning,” comes Ryan’s voice.  
  
“Sorry, you been awake long?” Brendon grunts, trying to sit up without accidentally kicking someone.   
  
“Fifteen minutes-ish. I didn’t want to wake you.”   
  
Brendon manages to stand up, and he reaches out a hand and helps Ryan to his feet. “Coffee time,” he says, and they smile easily at each other, step over a couple snoring bodies, and head into the kitchen together.   
  


*****

  
  
Days pass by quickly. They sleep until noon or one, sound check, play their show, come alive under the too-bright stage lights, and stay up till three or four in the morning, watching movies and playing video games and laughing at William’s drunk dance moves.   
  
Brendon kind of loves William. He doesn’t ask unnecessary questions, and he makes funny faces, and somehow ramen always tastes better when he cooks it, and he cuddles whenever Brendon needs it. So between William and the incredible rush of performing every night, Brendon’s actually kind of okay. He’s just living, letting go, watching the days whoosh by outside the bus windows, and it’s not bad at all.   
  
Brendon feels like he has a family now. William, and Sisky who keeps challenging Brent to an “epic battle of the bass,” and Jon the TAI bass tech who wears flip-flops in February and can beat even Spencer at Halo. Brendon starts to understand Spencer’s nonverbal language, the grunts and nods and eye-rolls. He gets used to the way Ryan never puts the cap on the toothpaste, the little snuffly noises Brent makes in his sleep, the constant background hum of the bus engine. These little things are a part of his life, all of a sudden, and it’s wonderful.   
  


*****

  
  
“Guys, we should get an apartment together,” Brendon announces one day over breakfast. Well, maybe it’s lunch, because technically it’s three in the afternoon, but whatever.   
  
Spencer raises an eyebrow. Ryan raises both eyebrows. Brent wrinkles his nose.   
  
“Seriously,” Brendon persists. “I mean, I don’t want to impose on your family any more, Spence. And I don’t have enough money for, like, a permanent apartment of my own. And that way we can practice, like, all the time.”   
  
“Okay,” shrugs Spencer. Well, that was easier than he expected.   
  
“Okay,” says Ryan, smiling. Brendon gets this warm glowing feeling at the base of his stomach.   
  
“I don’t know,” says Brent. They all look at him.  
  
“I mean, I just like my personal space, you know?” he elaborates.   
  
“Well, think about it,” says Ryan.   
  
Brent misses a radio appearance that week. Ryan yells at him for fifteen minutes. Brent decides not to move in with them.  
  
Brendon finds a condo in their hometown, where they’ll still be close enough to have practice with Brent and stuff. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a miniscule kitchen, no storage space, and a tiny little balcony. It sounds perfect.   
  


*****

  
  
Before they know it, it’s the last week of tour.   
  
The bus is stopped so the driver can get some sleep. Brendon’s been tossing and turning in his bunk for at least an hour, and he wants some air.   
  
There’s a picnic table right next to the bus’s parking space, and Brendon spies one glowing cigarette ember and two familiar faces.   
  
“You shouldn’t smoke,” he blurts out, and William smiles at him.   
  
“Bad habit, but it helps me sleep. Quitting soon,” he says softly. As if to prove it, he tosses the butt onto the pavement and stands up.   
  
“That doesn’t make sense, nicotine’s a stimulant,” Ryan points out.   
  
William ignores him. He stretches, catlike as ever. “Night.” He goes back to his bus, with a sideways wink at Brendon that Ryan hopefully misses.   
  
“Hi,” says Ryan unnecessarily. Brendon perches on top of the table and rests his feet on the bench next to Ryan. They’re somewhere in the South, so the pre-dawn air isn’t too cold, but Ryan’s still wrapped in a fleece blanket, Vegas boy that he is.  
  
“Couldn’t sleep,” Brendon explains.   
  
“Same. It’s almost dawn, my sleep schedule must be pretty fucked up.”   
  
“Well, yeah, we’re rock stars now,” smirks Brendon.   
  
“I think rock stars would be drunk at this point,” says Ryan dryly.   
  
“Oops.”   
  
“I can’t remember the last time I was up to see the sun rise,” says Ryan absently, staring at the horizon, where there’s a pink glow breaking into the blue-black sky.   
  
They lie down, side by side, on top of the picnic table, and watch as the faint glow spreads and shifts into pale shades of orange and yellow. Brendon tries not to breathe too loud, for fear of shattering the moment.   
  
Of course, the bus drives off without them, but all the running and shouting and arm-waving is totally worth it.   
  


*****

  
  
They play their final show, and Brendon almost cries as he thanks everyone for coming.   
  
That night, everyone (except the Panic boys) gets spectacularly drunk, and they have a dance party on the TAI bus, complete with a black light that Sisky pulls out of nowhere. Brendon falls asleep in the back lounge, his head on William’s chest, Jon resting on his stomach, and Spencer drooling on his forearm.   
  
Brendon cries, just a little, on the plane the next day. Ryan gives his hand a quick squeeze without looking up from his book.   
  


*****

  
  
They move into their apartment, the three of them, and within a week, there are pizza boxes and Chinese takeout cartons on every surface, which nobody bothers to throw away until they start molding. They spend most of their time in the music room (which, technically, is also the living room and the dining room and the guest bedroom) playing Beatles covers. Their sleep schedules are still majorly fucked up. Brendon thinks it’s awesome, like the college dorm room he never had.   
  
The only problem is Brent. He’s missed three rehearsals. He was late for an interview. Ryan’s never yelled so much in his life.   
  


*****

  
  
William and Jon fly in from Chicago to visit for ten days. They all sit around and play music, making up their own songs with names like “Ode To Spencer Smith’s Verbosity,” obviously written by William and Ryan, and “Nerds Who Play Scrabble Too Much,” Spencer’s retaliation. Brendon’s personal favorite is “The Epic Love Story Of RyRo And His Vest.”   
  
Four days in, the room is covered with the old-school Polaroid photos that William’s always taking, and Jon’s lost at least three pairs of flip-flops in the mess, and Brendon can’t imagine the condo without either of them.  
  


*****

  
  
Three days before William and Jon are supposed to leave, Brent misses practice again. Ryan paces for the rest of the day, muttering things like “fucking cocksucking bitchface motherfucking asswipe douchebag.” Brendon and Jon learn a couple new swear words; William and Spencer are unimpressed.   
  
Brendon has the epiphany over dinner, as he watches Jon pick all the anchovies off his pizza and hand them over to Spencer without being asked.   
  
The next day, Ryan announces a tribal council. Everyone stares at him expectantly as he bites his lip and obviously tries to find the right words, but Spencer beats him to it.   
  
“Come to Europe with us,” Spencer says bluntly.   
  
“Sure,” Jon smiles. It’s that easy.  
  
William’s the only one who’s unhappy with the situation; when puppy dog eyes don’t work, he promises sexual favors, and then starts saying things like “If you guys aren’t nice to him, or if he gets hurt, if he gets a fucking hangnail or something, I will personally fly to Europe and cover you in fucking seaweed, Brendon.” Brendon sticks out his tongue. The seaweed phobia was supposed to be a secret.   
  
They break the news to Brent the next day. He scowls a lot, shrugs a couple times, and calls Ryan an “uptight douchebag with a massive stick up his ass,” but all in all, it goes better than expected.   
  


*****

  
  
“I left you a present under your pillow,” William whispers in Brendon’s ear as they hug goodbye at the airport.   
  
Brendon reaches under his pillow that night and pulls out three things: a ten-pack of condoms, a bottle of lube, and a Polaroid.   
  
The picture shows him and Ryan, guitars in hand on the futon. Brendon’s frowning at his fret board. Ryan’s gazing at Brendon with this look that Brendon would call adoration, if he didn’t know better. It makes his heart flutter in a way he’s been trying to suppress for months now.   
  
On the back, there’s a black Sharpie scrawl:  _To anyone that’s not you or him, it’s obvious. Don’t get him knocked up. Love you. –WB_  
  
Brendon half-laughs, half-sobs, and misses William already.   
  


*****

  
  
Bags are packed, passports are in order, Jon could play their songs in his sleep, and they leave for Europe the next day. Jon in all his common sense-ness insists that they go to sleep at least a little early, because jet lag is going to fuck them up pretty badly.   
  
But Brendon can’t sleep, of course, and he’s sitting out on the balcony and wondering idly if he should ask a doctor about the whole not-sleeping thing. He thinks maybe he should be more nervous about the fact that they’re about to do a tour of Europe with a brand-new bassist, but something about Jon (maybe it’s the flip-flops) just demands confidence. He runs over the lyrics to Camisado in his head, to make sure he hasn’t forgotten in the twelve hours he last sang them. He takes a deep breath and tries to stop thinking, if just for a couple minutes, but that doesn’t go too well.   
  
He pads downstairs, trying not to wake Jon, who’s sprawled across the futon snoring loudly. He pours a glass of milk, makes himself a peanut butter and banana sandwich, and heads back up to his room.   
  
There’s soft acoustic guitar coming from the open door to the balcony, and he smiles. It’s Play Crack The Sky, by Brand New. He clears the peanut butter from his throat, sets the sandwich down, and starts singing, leaning on the doorframe, and Ryan doesn’t seem at all surprised to hear him.   
  
 _Sent out an SOS call, it was a quarter past four in the morning  
when the storm broke our second anchor line.  
Four months at sea, four months of calm seas  
to be pounded in the shallows off the tip of Montauk Point.  
They call them rogues, they travel fast and alone.  
One-hundred-foot faces of God's good ocean gone wrong.  
What they call love is a risk, 'cause you always get hit out of nowhere  
by some wave and end up on your own._  
  
He watches Ryan, the tiny body hunched over the guitar, the long graceful fingers moving like liquid over the strings, barely there in the light of the half moon.   
  
Ryan joins him, harmonizing for the final line:  _You know that you are not alone, I need you like water in my lungs._  There’s a long silence when they finish.   
  
“Couldn’t have picked something more depressing, I guess,” Brendon says.   
  
Ryan finally looks at him then with this sad little smile. Brendon’s heart drops through the floor.   
  
“Remember you said you were scared?” Ryan whispers. Brendon nods. “Me too. Me fucking too. Of this. Of you.”   
  
It clicks, the song, the lyrics about love as an inevitable shipwreck. Brendon’s heart soars back up into his ribcage and then cracks right in two.   
  
“Me?” is all he’s capable of saying.   
  
Ryan nods, sets down the guitar, stands up so he’s sort of facing Brendon, except he’s looking down at his hands. Brendon finds that leaning against the doorframe is suddenly a necessity instead of a cool pose.   
  
“I don’t know…I don’t know,” Ryan’s muttering incoherently at the floor. “I can’t…I mean. I don’t know. If this is going to work. I’m scared out of my mind and I’m panicking and this is so not good decision making. But I can’t go another day without…”   
  
“Without what?” Brendon breathes, not letting himself hope. Ryan looks up at him, eyes blazing, and kisses him.   
  
Everything just falls away, the balcony and the moonlight and the whole fucking world, and the only things that exist are the places where their bodies are pressed together, hips and stomachs and chests and lips.   
  
Brendon doesn’t know how he lived without this for so many months.   
  
“You taste like peanut butter,” Ryan says, and begins kissing his way down Brendon’s neck.   
  
“Sandwich,” sighs Brendon, and, no, he can’t think of anything more clever, because Ryan’s making thinking an impossibility. His teeth find the sensitive skin just above Brendon’s collarbone, and Brendon inhales sharply.   
  
He almost passes out when their lips meet again, because this just can’t be happening. Any second now Ryan’s going to run off again, so he curls a hand around Ryan’s neck in an attempt to prevent that, nipping and sucking at Ryan’s lower lip, praying to the god he no longer believes in that this doesn’t end any time soon.   
  
“Don’t go,” Brendon whispers desperately between kisses, barely conscious that the words are actually coming out.   
  
“I’m not going anywhere, not tonight,” says Ryan firmly, and he seems to mean it, because he’s clinging to Brendon like the world will end if there’s so much as an inch of space between them.   
  
Their bodies must be generating enough heat to power the entire Las Vegas metropolis, and Brendon still wants more. Ryan’s shirt gets tossed away, and it might have just ended up in the driveway but Brendon can’t be bothered. Ryan’s making these little whining whimpers in the back of his throat every time Brendon bites his bottom lip, grinding up against Brendon’s hip like he can’t help himself. He grabs Brendon’s hand and pulls him into the bedroom, and he’s quite happy to follow, quite happy to let Ryan yank his pants down so he’s left in his boxers.   
  
“Wait,” whispers Brendon, and he steps out of his pants and separates their bodies long enough to lock the door. When he returns, Ryan’s wriggled under the blanket.   
  
He slides between the sheets, and Ryan’s looking at him with those eyes, scared and desperate and hungry, and everything Brendon’s been trying to push away for too long comes rushing back with the force of a fucking tidal wave.   
  
“Sure?” Brendon whispers.   
  
Ryan doesn’t answer, just sucks Brendon’s tongue into his mouth, and it’s a very effective way to both shut him up and make him unbelievably hard. He pulls Brendon’s shirt roughly over his head and slides one graceful hand down Brendon’s chest, down his stomach, till he’s palming Brendon through his boxers with this devilish little smile Brendon didn’t think he was capable of, and Brendon has to bite his lip to keep from crying out. He arches his back and takes a deep breath, and Ryan slithers on top of him and kisses him needily. He’ll take that as a yes.  
  
He flips them over so he’s pinning Ryan down, starts working his hips in rough figure eights, watching the shapes Ryan’s mouth makes as he moves. Ryan’s eyes are half-closed and there’s a slight sheen of sweat making his cheekbones glow, and Brendon can’t help but whisper “You’re beautiful.”  
  
Ryan’s eyes fly open at that, and he smiles blindingly and it’s all Brendon can see.   
  
“That’s very sweet, Bren, but if you don’t fuck me soon I might pass out,” he whispers, and, um. Wow. Yeah. Brendon’s suddenly but not unpleasantly lightheaded.  
  
Ryan’s smirking at the completely overwhelmed look on Brendon’s face, and Brendon has absolutely no idea how he does that, goes from sweet fragile Ryan to… _that_ , in like point zero three seconds. But he suddenly has no time for pondering the mystery that is Ryan Ross, because it’s far more important that he get Ryan’s pants off.   
  
Holy shit. Ryan. Naked Ryan. Because, seriously, not even in his dreams did he imagine, and there have been a lot of dreams. He trails his fingers slowly, reverently even, from the hollow of Ryan’s neck down his chest, comes to rest with his hand tight enough to bruise around Ryan’s hip, crashes their lips together messily, gasps as Ryan’s erection rubs against his own, and God bless William Beckett.   
  
He manages to pull away long enough to stumble to his suitcase where he (rather optimistically) packed William’s little present, shedding his boxers on the way back, and it’s only when he’s crouching between Ryan’s knees fumbling with the bottle of lube that his brain kicks back into action and starts freaking the fuck out.   
  
Because, really, shit. He has no idea what he’s doing, and what if Ryan doesn’t like it or what if he hurts Ryan or…shit.   
  
“Bren,” says Ryan softly, and when Brendon looks up at him the butterflies get even worse. “Stop overthinking,” Ryan commands, and even though his own eyes are far from confident, his smile is enough to make Brendon calm down a little.   
  
He takes a deep breath, slicking up his fingers. “Tell me if I hurt you, okay?” he whispers.   
  
There’s slight resistance as he pushes the first finger in, and when he looks up Ryan has this funny twisted face on, but he nods. Brendon pushes a little deeper and crooks his finger cautiously, remembering William going on and on and on about the prostate in one of his drunken rambles, and again, God bless William Beckett because Ryan just gasped and wriggled and Brendon thinks that’s a good thing.   
  
“Yeah?” he asks softly, and Ryan nods.   
  
“More,” he demands breathily.   
  
Brendon’s not so sure about that, but he slides two fingers in this time, twists them up a little, and stares, fascinated, as Ryan throws his head back, his hands fluttering and grasping at the mattress. He does it again, a little harder, and Ryan groans, “Fucking, yes, more,” and Brendon can barely breathe for how incredibly turned on he is.   
  
Brendon slides in three fingers, and there’s a definite grimace on Ryan’s face, but as soon as Brendon finds that spot again he’s fucking  _writhing_ , arching his back, and Brendon lets out his breath in a hiss because, wow, is that gorgeous. He works his fingers until Ryan’s flushed and panting, his hair sticking in strips to his forehead.   
  
“Ready?” he asks, and Ryan nods.   
  
His fingers tremble as he puts on the condom and squeezes out more lube, and then there’s all the inconvenient logistics of positioning and where things go but suddenly the head of his cock is pressed against Ryan, and Ryan’s looking at him with those eyes, a little scared but sure. Brendon pushes in gently, ever so gently, and nearly comes undone, because it’s all impossibly tight and hot and  _tight_  and definitely the best thing Brendon’s ever felt.   
  
Ryan’s biting his lips and his eyes are squeezed shut again.   
  
“Ry?” Brendon says, but it comes out more as a gasp because he still can’t get over how amazing this is.   
  
“Mmm?” he squeaks through tight-pressed lips.   
  
“Look at me, Ry,” he whispers, trying to make his voice as comforting as possible.   
  
Ryan eases his eyes open. Brendon smiles at him, gets a tiny quirk of the lips in return, and he feels the muscles around him relax ever so slightly. Brendon locks his eyes on Ryan’s, trying to be reassuring, which is kind of a funny thing to be trying in this position, but it seems to work, because Ryan nods slowly.   
  
Brendon shifts his hips a little (gasps again, because movement makes this a zillion times better) and tries to find that spot again. It takes a couple seconds, a little experimental wiggling, but suddenly Ryan’s gasping right along with him.   
  
“Right there,” Ryan chokes, and Brendon starts moving in earnest.   
  
He stops thinking, for once in his life. It’s all just a rush of sensation, too much fucking sensation, brushes of hot skin, hotter sweat, ragged breaths, an endless litany of stuttered curses that he’s pretty sure are coming from his own mouth, Ryan’s moans, the mind-blowing burn of Ryan clenched tight around him, and the only thing keeping him anchored are Ryan’s eyes, huge and dark and demanding through all of this.   
  
Ryan’s hips surge up to meet his on every thrust, quickly finding their rhythm and losing it again as Brendon feels himself nearing the edge, his breathing going choppy, waves of lightning coursing through him, shivering down to his toes, making rhythm impossible, and who needs it, really, because this uncontrollable breathtaking chaos is just so much better.  
  
Ryan reaches between them to touch himself while his other hand digs into Brendon’s back, and it’s the most beautiful thing Brendon’s ever seen, because Ryan’s completely undone. Ryan Ross, the dictionary definition of composure and poise and guardedness, he’s a quivering moaning mess, panting, gasping, helpless, his fingernails pulling sharply across Brendon’s shoulderblade as he comes, letting go for once in his obsessively controlled existence, and looking at him just makes something in Brendon break, and he gives in, goes under, drowns himself in fiery sensation and tingling skin and chaos.   
  
Brendon collapses, buries his face in Ryan’s neck, sweaty skin pressed against sweaty skin. He can feel the rise and fall of Ryan’s ribcage, can feel Ryan’s racing heartbeat, can feel his breath as he turns his head slightly to nuzzle his nose into Brendon’s hair.   
  
Brendon wants to stay like this for the rest of his life. Fuck eating, fuck the tour, fuck reality, Ryan is all he’ll ever need. 


	6. 6/10

Brendon drifts slowly into consciousness, becoming only gradually aware of the smooth warm skin pressed up against his side, of Ryan’s head buried in the crook of his neck. He smiles, eyes still closed, and takes in a deep, blissful breath of Ryan-scented air.   
  
Ryan stirs next to him, stirs then stiffens, and his eyes snap open.   
  
Brendon looks at him, and they hover like that for an eternity, eyes locked together, and Brendon knows,  _this is it_.   
  
“Hey,” Ryan says softly, and Brendon lets out the breath he doesn’t remember holding. It’ll be okay, then. He’s not running for the door, at least.   
  
“Hey,” he replies. His voice cracks. He smiles tentatively, and Ryan smiles back, and that’s definitely a good thing.  
  
“Why is there a shirt in the driveway?” he hears Jon’s voice inquire from outside. Oh,  _shit_.   
  
He looks at Ryan again. A giggle bubbles up through Ryan’s lips, Brendon snorts, and suddenly they’re both pressing hands over their mouths, and Brendon’s stomach hurts from the effort of holding back the noise.   
  
Even when they get themselves under control, Brendon feels like his face might split in two from smiling.   
  
“I should go,” Ryan whispers, and Brendon nods, and neither of them move, they just stare at each other some more.   
  
Brendon kisses him, light and questioning, and Ryan kisses back.   
  
“I should go,” Ryan says, more breathily this time, thumb still stroking Brendon’s cheek. He nods again, not trusting words at the moment. Ryan sighs and pulls the blanket off the bed to cover himself. Brendon can see him wince when he leans forward.   
  
But really, all he can think about is how his heart is melting, because that’s  _Ryan_ , Ryan blushing as he picks up his pants from the floor, Ryan awkwardly hopping on one foot trying to hold the blanket and put on pants at the same time, Ryan’s hair all mussed from sleep and, well,  _that_ , and Ryan’s smell still lingering on his pillow.   
  
Ryan grabs Brendon’s shirt off the floor and slips it on. Brendon watches reverently from the bed, wanting, aching, for Ryan to stay, but he heads for the door, raising a hand in a shy wave.   
  
But he pauses with one hand on the doorknob, looks back to where Brendon’s still staring. He darts over to the bed before Brendon can blink, brushes a soft kiss on Brendon’s cheek, and whispers, “Best sex of my life, by the way.” And then he’s gone, shutting the door carefully behind him.   
  
Brendon jumps to his feet and does a victory dance, smile too big for his face.   
  


*****

  
  
Ryan’s expression is carefully composed, staring pointedly down into his oatmeal, when Brendon goes downstairs for breakfast. Spencer’s grimacing into his cell phone and Jon’s buzzing around the room looking for a flip-flop, and Brendon feels like it shouldn’t be this normal, the world should be shaking and people should be singing and birds should be chirping.   
  
But every time Brendon moves, the bruises on his hipbones remind him that it wasn’t a dream, and he smiles.   
  


*****

  
  
Brendon really loves Europe. They stay in  _hotels_  in Europe.   
  
Only problem is, Zack just randomly throws room keys at them, and on the first night, Brendon ends up with Jon, which was not part of the Plan.   
  
But Jon was right, the jet lag hits hard, and they go to sleep at nine. Brendon barely has five seconds to wish he was cuddled next to Ryan before his eyes droop closed.  
  
Brendon wakes up early and slips down to the lobby for breakfast. Ryan’s already there, sipping his coffee and scribbling on hotel stationary.   
  
“Hey,” Brendon says. Ryan looks up only briefly, and then his eyes flicker back down to his coffee.   
  
“Missed you last night,” Ryan mumbles, low and indistinct and questioning. Brendon’s heart does a happy little dance in his chest, because that’s a fucking  _promise_.   
  
“Me too,” he answers. His face is starting to hurt from smiling so much.   
  
Spencer comes down to breakfast just a minute later, and the rest of the day is torture. Brendon’s fingers itch constantly, aching to reach out and tuck Ryan’s hair behind his ear, aching to massage the jetlagged tension out of his neck, aching to just  _touch_.   
  
They don’t have a moment alone for the whole fucking day, and it gets so bad that Brendon wants to shout at people for existing.   
  
The worst part is when Ryan starts doing Brendon’s makeup. Brendon’s sitting on the counter, Ryan standing between his knees so his body heat and his breath are  _right there_ , and Brendon wants to scream, because he’s  _so close_.   
  
“Hold fucking still, you’re so fucking twitchy,” Ryan hisses, touchy like he always gets before shows.   
  
“I still don’t get the makeup,” Jon mutters from the couch.   
  
“Mmrf,” comes Spencer’s grunt of agreement.  
  
Ryan huffs exasperatedly, his breath a gentle puff on Brendon’s face, and Brendon can’t help but squirm.   
  
“I’m gonna go check out the crowd,” announces Jon.   
  
“Mmrf.”   
  
The second they’re out the door, the room is silent and electric. Brendon opens his eyes ever so slowly to find Ryan staring right back at him. There’s a brief clatter as the eyeliner falls from Ryan’s hand, and then all Brendon can hear is the blood rushing in his ears and the pounding of his heart as they kiss, re-exploring each others mouths after what feels like a lifetime.   
  
Fate still hates them, though. That night, Brendon’s roomed with Spencer again. The night after, it’s Jon.   
  
They steal moments together during the day, sneaking off to bathrooms and closets, and it’s not romantic and it’s not sexy and it’s  _terrifying,_  because someone could walk in at any second. But it’s oxygen.   
  
The third day, they sneak off to the venue’s boiler room right after sound check. Ryan’s wrapped around Brendon even before the door closes, pressing greedy little kisses over his cheeks and nose and eyes and neck before landing on his lips, and Brendon starts to believe that maybe Ryan needs this as much as he does. When he jerks Ryan off, pressed against the dingy cinderblock wall, Ryan bites into Brendon’s shoulder to silence himself as he comes, and Brendon sneaks off to the bathroom five times that night, just to stare at the bruise in the mirror.   
  


*****

  
  
The fourth night, they finally get matching room keys.   
  
When they crawl into bed and settle next to each other, their lips meet languidly, unhurried and careful. It feels like they kiss for hours, just exploring, hands caressing and stroking. It keeps hitting Brendon how breathtakingly beautiful Ryan is close up, the planes and angles of his face all new in this intimate perspective, and Brendon’s vision goes all fuzzy and dreamy just trying to soak him in.   
  
It’s almost an accident that their clothes end up peeled away, layer by layer, almost an accident that Brendon’s hard, and when they have sex, it’s gentle and deliberate and slow, so that Brendon can watch every shift in Ryan’s expression, revel in every brush of sweat-slick skin. He kisses Ryan through his orgasm, swallowing every moan into his own mouth, breathing out Ryan’s name in return.   
  
“Hey, Ry,” Brendon smiles, a while later, as they’re lying in bed, Ryan’s fingers running absentmindedly over Brendon’s hair.   
  
“Mmph?”   
  
“Want to take a bubble bath?” He raises an eyebrow, and Ryan looks half bemused and half exasperated.   
  
“You’re a ten year old girl, anyone ever tell you that?”   
  
“You. Constantly. But, seriously?”   
  
“Yeah, sure, what the fuck.”   
  
So Brendon hops out of bed and runs the water. He’s already in by the time Ryan comes through the door, scrubbing a hand through his hair and yawning.   
  
“’Bout time, slowpoke,” Brendon teases. Ryan just stares down at him, this delicate half-smile curving his lips.   
  
“You’re adorable. You know that, Bren?” he says softly, before sliding into the water. He crawls up so he’s straddling Brendon and kisses him, slow and deep, and Brendon has no idea what he did to deserve this. He runs his fingers up the ridges of Ryan’s spine and curls them around Ryan’s neck to pull him closer.   
  
His brain is screaming  _I love you._  He manages to hold it in.   
  
They kiss like that for an hour, until the bubbles are gone and the water’s cold and Brendon’s breathless and his fingers are all pruny, and then they turn on some History Channel special about the Vikings and climb into bed and kiss some more.   
  
“Ry, are you ticklish?” Brendon asks lazily.   
  
“Nope. Not at all.”   
  
Brendon gives his side an experimental pinch, and Ryan squeaks and wriggles away.   
  
“Liar, you filthy little liar!” Brendon giggles, and he pounces, tickling Ryan’s stomach mercilessly until Ryan topples off the bed, breathless and helpless with laughter. When he climbs back under the covers, he’s smiling, carefree, eyes sparkling, his expression open and unguarded like Brendon’s rarely seen him, his hair touseled and damp from the bath and his cheeks flushed and glowing. Brendon’s breath catches in his throat. He starts to let himself hope.   
  
They wake up tangled together, Ryan’s arm thrown over Brendon’s waist, Brendon’s leg hooked between Ryan’s thighs, grasping at their last moments of intimacy.   
  


*****

  
  
“Why can’t we tell the band?” Brendon whispers one morning, wrapping his arms around Ryan’s waist from behind as Ryan brushes his teeth.   
  
Ryan glares at him in the mirror and spits out a mouthful of foam.   
  
“Please tell me you’re kidding?” he snaps.   
  
“No, seriously.”   
  
“Duh, Brendon. Because then they start making awkward jokes, and as much as they pretend to be okay with it they’ll feel really weird whenever we all hang out, and because they feel awkward we’ll feel awkward, and nobody can keep their mouths shut around here so everyone would find out, and-“   
  
“Fine,” says Brendon, taken aback by the vehemence in Ryan’s voice. “It would just be nice, you know, if I could kiss you in public for once.”   
  
“Sorry,” Ryan says shortly. “It’s not worth it.”   
  
Brendon can’t help hearing that as  _you’re not worth it._  
  
Later that day, they do an interview.   
  
“So, Brendon, a lot of the fans want to know. Anyone special in your life these days?” the interviewer asks, sugary-sweet. Brendon wants to punch her.   
  
“Nobody worth talking about,” he says sourly, and out of the corner of his eye, he can see Ryan’s face go limp with hurt. Brendon sort of hates himself.   
  
“What the fuck was that all about?” Ryan spits when they’re safely back at the hotel.   
  
“You said it, not me,” Brendon says, equally venomous.   
  
“Bren-“ Ryan says, whines almost, and Brendon spins around to face him. “I can’t lose the band, Bren,” Ryan says simply. Brendon knows that’s the last word.   
  


*****

  
  
They have almost three complete days in Paris, and no show the first night, with the leaves just beginning to glow yellow around the edges and the air starting to bite in the evenings. The first afternoon, Spencer and Jon decide to do the European thing and go to a soccer game. Ryan decides to go to a museum, and because Brendon’s a pathetic little puppy dog who would follow Ryan to the ends of the earth, he goes along.   
  
The Louvre is dead boring. It’s too crowded and too big. They can’t get remotely close to the Mona Lisa even when they find it, and the rest of the place is full of dull-colored portraits of bleeding saints and fly-covered pig heads. Brendon decides to play tour guide.   
  
“Here, we have a real masterpiece,” he whispers in Ryan’s ear, as Ryan stops to consider a painting. “This is by some old dead guy, and the subject is some other dead guy. Notice the strikingly depressing usage of monotone browns and greys.”   
  
Ryan looks like he doesn’t know whether to laugh or be scandalized.   
  
“Bren, it’s a Caravaggio,” he hisses.   
  
“Let me guess. He’s old, and he’s dead.”   
  
Ryan smiles, wide and honest and amused in spite of himself, and grabs Brendon’s hand, entwining their fingers. All the boring paintings in the world are worth it, for that smile.  
  


*****

  
  
They’re somewhere in Germany, and Brendon’s barely awake after three orgasms, tracing soft mindless patterns into Ryan’s hip, when he feels Ryan’s lips move against his neck.   
  
“Bren?”   
  
“Mm?”   
  
“How the fuck did this happen?” He wriggles slightly away, rolling onto his side so he can look Brendon in the eye.   
  
“Good question?” Brendon not-really-answers, and some explanation would be nice, because he was so close to asleep.   
  
“I mean…” Ryan trails off, picking at the sheet, and when he looks back up his eyes are carefully blank in that way nobody but Ryan can ever manage. “This is just sex, right?” And he’s not asking, he’s convincing, his voice thin and terrified.   
  
“Yeah, Ry. It’s just sex,” Brendon echoes.   
  
“We’ll stop if they ever suspect anything.”  
  
“Yeah.” And he pulls Ryan close again, but they both know they’re lying.   
  
Because whatever comes out of Ryan’s mouth when he’s having one of these quiet freakouts about the band, it’s not what his eyes say when he wakes up with Brendon’s breath in his hair and his hand over Brendon’s heart.   
  


*****

  
  
“Fucker gave us the stinkeye,” Ryan mutters under his breath. “Wanker, they call them here, I think.”   
  
“Good golly, old chap, I do say, bloody hell, I have a rather large stick up my arse,” Brendon says, in his best pompous British accent, sticking out his tongue at the retreating back of the old man who had just glared at their intertwined fingers. Ryan giggles and gives Brendon’s hand a squeeze.   
  
“Ooh, look,” he says, and drags Brendon over to yet another stall. London flea markets seem to carry exactly Ryan’s brand of weird vintage ruffly things. Ryan rummages in a bin and pulls out a flowered scarf.   
  
“It’ll clash perfectly with everything you own,” Brendon says dryly. Ryan scowls. “Not that you won’t look perfect anyway,” Brendon amends. Ryan smiles blindingly and kisses him on the nose.   
  
“Aren’t we feeling precious today,” Brendon says, before nuzzling into Ryan’s neck.  
  
“Shut up, just because you make me go all mushy,” mumbles Ryan, and then he seems to realize what he said, and whips around to pay for his scarf.   
  
“Did you mean that?” Brendon asks, once they’re on their way again, Ryan still flushed pink.   
  
“Maybe.”   
  
“Good,” Brendon smiles, and reaches out to take Ryan’s hand.   
  
“You just…I feel alive, when you’re around,” Ryan says shyly, still refusing to look at Brendon. Brendon can’t answer; he’s too busy smiling.   
  


*****

  
  
“Where the fuck have you guys been? We were supposed to be on five minutes ago,” Spencer grumbles.   
  
“Sorry, got lost,” says Ryan stiffly. It’s the feeblest excuse ever, and Spencer looks like he’s going to call them on it, but Zack shows up.  
  
“Okay. Last show! Let’s get this over with,” he says, and starts shooing them onstage.   
  
Ryan doesn’t meet Brendon’s eyes when they play their guitar parts facing each other.  
  
They’re not great, but even so, the adrenaline rush is the same as always, and they run offstage to tumultuous applause. Brendon bounces on the tips of his toes and hums at the mirror as he dabs off some sweat.   
  
“What was that shit?” says Ryan, slamming the door as he enters. Brendon freezes. Spencer and Jon stop mid-conversation.   
  
“What do you mean?” says Brendon, trying to keep his voice level.   
  
“That was awful! Did you not warm up or something?” Ryan spits.   
  
 _No, I was busy with your dick,_  Brendon doesn’t say. Instead, he mumbles, “I warmed up.”   
  
“Well, that was shitty,” Ryan says, his voice low and accusatory, and he storms out of the room.   
  
Brendon tries to hold back the tears.   
  
“It wasn’t  _that_  bad,” Jon says.   
  
“Ignore him,” says Spencer gruffly. “I think he worries everything’s gonna get taken away from him if we hit one bad note.”   
  
Brendon thinks,  _that again._  
  
He finds Ryan in the bathroom, sitting on the sink with tears streaming down his face.   
  
“Sorry,” he whispers when Brendon comes in.   
  
“You’d better be.”   
  
“They can’t find out. They can’t suspect anything,” Ryan says, a desperate edge making his voice crack.   
  
“I know. I get it. The band. I know,” Brendon says defeatedly. Ryan doesn’t answer, just slides off the sink and buries his face in Brendon’s chest.   
  


*****

  
  
The next day, they say goodbye to Jon at the airport and fly home.   
  
“It smells like feet and rotten Chinese food,” says Spencer, as soon as they walk in the door of the condo.   
  
“I think maybe we should’ve cleaned up before we left,” Brendon agrees.   
  
“I have Febreeze,” Ryan volunteers, and while he runs around spraying every surface, Spencer and Brendon settle down to play Halo.   
  
“I’m making nachos, anyone else want some?” calls Ryan from the refrigerator, a few hours later, when the house has been successfully de-odored. Everything now smells overpoweringly of lavender, but it could be worse.   
  
“You’re gonna made a great housewife someday, Ry,” Spencer grins. “Hah, gotcha, motherfucker,” he crows at the TV, and Brendon curses.   
  
The phone rings, and Ryan darts over to pick it up. There’s a long pause, broken only by the sounds of battle onscreen.   
  
“What? When?” Ryan croaks. Brendon looks up. “Thank you,” he whispers, and hangs up.   
  
“The fuck’s going on, Ry?” says Spencer sharply.   
  
Ryan turns to him slowly, like he’s moving underwater. His face is ghastly white, his chest heaving. His lips move soundlessly for a second. Brendon’s chest goes tight and panicky.   
  
“My dad’s dead,” Ryan says, monotone, staring intently at a spot on the wall.   
  
There’s a rushing noise in Brendon’s ears and his heartbeat seems to have gone painfully irregular. Ryan turns around, stiff and deliberate, and heads for the stairs.   
  
“Wait, no, let us help-“ says Spencer quickly, but Ryan cuts him off with a shake of his head.   
  
“I just want to be alone,” he says, still in that deadly monotone. They watch him go, stunned into silence.   
  
“Shit,” Spencer breathes. Brendon nods. That about sums it up.   
  
“I should try to talk to him,” says Spencer after a long pause. He follows Ryan upstairs.   
  
Brendon’s chest aches, helpless and panicked, as he watches Spencer go. He wants to be the one doing the comforting. He wants to wrap Ryan up in his arms and kiss it all away. Fuck lifelong friendships, he’s the one who makes Ryan smile these days.   
  
It’s stupid and it’s petty and it’s completely fucking irrelevant, but he hates Spencer for having a part of Ryan that he can’t have.   
  
He goes upstairs. In the hallway, Spencer’s carefully shutting Ryan’s door.   
  
“What happened?” Brendon asks. Spencer just shakes his head. “I could try,” Brendon says hopefully.   
  
“No, I don’t think there’s anything you can do for him,” Spencer says. “I’m just gonna go to bed, I’m jetlagged.”   
  
“It’s only midnight, it’s early,” says Brendon pointlessly, but Spencer’s already closing his door behind him. Then Spencer’s first sentence hits him, and hot tears prick at his eyes. “Fuck you,” he growls at the door.   
  
Brendon paces on his balcony for half an hour, anxious and close to tears. He can’t think straight.   
  
His feet carry him to Ryan’s door before he can make an official decision. “Ry?” he calls softly, and knocks. When there’s no answer, he lets himself in.   
  
Ryan’s curled on his bed, back to the door, and Brendon’s reminded forcefully of that very first afternoon.   
  
“Hey,” he says softly.   
  
“Go away,” comes Ryan’s voice.   
  
“I just though…you know. That maybe you’d want to talk to someone?” Brendon asks, and Ryan finally turns around. His face is collapsed and pinched, and he somehow looks smaller than usual, but he’s not crying.   
  
“If I didn’t want to talk to Spencer, what makes you think you’d be any different?” he says viciously, his eyes cold and hard, unreadable and unreachable.  
  
Brendon turns around before Ryan can see the tears. Because, yeah, who was he kidding. 


	7. 7/10

Ryan doesn’t come out of his room for two days. Spencer spends a lot of time sitting outside his room, reassuring him it’ll be alright and telling him to eat something.   
  
Brendon can’t sleep. There’s something missing. There’s cool air where there should be warm soft skin and deep breathing and the smell of Ryan’s shampoo, and he feels impossibly distant, impossibly alone, without that perfect body curled against his chest.   
  
On the third day, the day of the funeral, Ryan finally emerges from his room, and Brendon feels like he’s been punched. Ryan’s skin, always pale, is now approaching translucent, and his eyes are black holes, and he’s moving like it hurts, like he’s fighting to stay upright.   
  
“What are you guys all dressed up for,” Ryan asks, his voice hoarse.   
  
“We were invited too,” Spencer says.   
  
“I don’t need you there.” Ryan’s not looking them in the eyes; instead, he’s staring at the carpet.   
  
“Very funny. Let’s go,” Spencer says firmly, and because it’s Spencer, Ryan goes.   
  
Brendon doesn’t hear a word of the ceremony. Ryan looks like he’s about to crumple to the ground, his eyes blank and his mouth pinched, the sunlight making his skin sickly green. Brendon can’t form coherent thoughts; it’s all a rush of panic and hurt and  _why can’t I make it better._  
  
It’s still too close to the surface. It’s all there, raw and vicious, and whenever he looks at Ryan he drowns in memories, vivid flashbacks of that wide rare smile and  _skinsweatgasp_  and lazy afternoons sightseeing and, god, it’s too fucking much, he wants to crush Ryan into a hug, close enough to feel his heartbeat, and forget that any of this ever happened.   
  
Ryan steps forward to throw the first handful of dirt into the grave, and he’s shaking but his eyes are dry. Brendon spins around and practically sprints to the car, and he only lets the tears burn their way out when he’s collapsed safely in the backseat, cheek pressed against the prickling upholstery, fingers digging into his own arms hard enough to bruise.   
  
He’s nowhere near composed when he hears the door open.   
  
“What’s going on, Bren,” says Spencer’s voice calmly from next to him.   
  
“It’s a funeral. You’re supposed to cry,” Brendon says defensively, scrubbing his tears away with his jacket sleeve.   
  
Spencer sighs and sits down next to him, staring at Brendon with those piercing blue laser-eyes. Brendon has a sudden irrational fear that Spencer knows exactly what’s going on.   
  
“I just haven’t been to a funeral in a long time,” Brendon answers, and it’s the truth but, well, not.   
  
Spencer doesn’t try to hug him, just nods. “Ryan’s going to the wake and he’s going to have his aunt bring him home. Want to pick up pizza on our way back?” he says, getting into the front seat, strong and capable, and Brendon’s grateful beyond words.   
  


*****

  
  
Pete calls soon after that, a three-way call with Jon, to talk about the MTV Video Awards, where they’ve been nominated for Video Of The Year (which, what the fuck) and are scheduled to perform.   
  
“It’s gonna be crazy, all-out. And we need to talk about your next tour, too. It’s weird, but people love the makeup and the costumes, so we’re going to have that circus you used for your video, really play it up. And Bren, can you be, like, really flamboyant with everything? Make it real showy. Stage gay.”   
  
Brendon almost chokes on his own spit at that. Seriously, life hates him.   
  
“So anyway, video awards. You guys have dancers and all kinds of shit that’ll be up on stage with you, so your first practice is in like a week I think, a couple days before the actual show. I’ll see you there, we’ll party. Gotta run though. Bye.”   
  
They echo their goodbyes and Pete hangs up. And Brendon’s currently wanting to curl in a ball and die, but he notices the tiniest hint of a sparkle in Ryan’s eyes.   
  
They can see him pulling himself together over the next week, making a visible effort to smile and talk and not retreat to his room quite so much. Brendon would be hopeful, but he knows it’s just for the band, as always. Ryan can’t get up onstage looking like a walking skeleton. He’s almost the old Ryan by the day of their first rehearsal, except that when you look too closely, there’s a brittleness behind his laugh, a tightness in his smile, and Brendon gets the feeling he’s barely holding on. Brendon himself isn’t much better.   
  
They pick up Jon at the airport and head over to the theater, and Brendon’s in a pretty good mood at first because Jon does that to people, but he’s ready to pass out by the end of the day. The theater is huge, and his voice keeps cracking, and the dancers keep twirling around him like gnats he wants to swat away. It’s like all his old energy just disappeared and went into Ryan; Ryan, who’s debating with the choreographer and criticizing the costumes and flitting around being  _involved_ , involved in life like he hasn’t been for weeks.   
  
And yet, when they get home and collapse on the couch with Jon to catch up, Ryan doesn’t join them. He trudges up to his room without a backwards glance.   
  
The next day, after rehearsal, Brendon’s being fitted for a top hat when he sees Ryan with a girl. A  _girl._  Not just any girl, but a pretty one, if you like that sort of thing, with the fake blonde hair and the big sparkling eyes. One of the dancers. Ryan’s smiling, wide and forced, at something she’s said, and she’s touching his arm. Brendon’s stomach wraps itself in knots.  
  
It’s not that girls don’t hit on them, like, all the time. But it’s just the first time that Ryan’s not smiling politely and walking away. Brendon can’t breathe.   
  


*****

  
  
“I need. Warmup,” he mutters to the choreographer, who keeps accosting him and telling him to practice his stupid little dance routine. He ends up having to warm up in the bathroom.   
  
“Bren, we’re on in five,” Jon says, poking his head through the door with a peaceful smile. Brendon can feel himself relaxing a little already. He follows Jon through the mob backstage and finds the wings. Through the blur of tech guys and creepy red backstage light, he can see Ryan, and next to him is the blonde, and Brendon’s calm goes straight out the window.   
  
“Quiet,” somebody hisses. “Curtain in thirty. Places.”   
  
The wings go silent, so Brendon can hear perfectly when the girl presses a kiss to Ryan’s cheek and whispers, “Good luck.”   
  
And with that, he has to take his place onstage, and the fact that he’s about to perform in front of thousands of people, not to mention TV cameras, is completely eclipsed by thoughts of Ryan. Afterwards, he doesn’t remember all of the performance, just the bits where his voice refuses to hit the high notes and he wants to trip the blonde as she dances in front of him.   
  
He wants to go home after that, but they actually win the fucking award, which,  _what?,_  and he has to talk in front of all those people, which  _so_  doesn’t work. He stares blankly at the thing in his hand and feels vaguely confused, and then he looks out at the crowd. They’re screaming, all these smiling faces turned up to him that he can barely see in the glare from the lights, and he’s terrified, because he didn’t do a damn thing to deserve this. It was all Ryan.   
  
“Fuck yeah,” Pete’s crowing when they come offstage, and he bear-hugs all of them. Brendon’s still not breathing properly. “Okay, so party time now? I’ll give you guys a few to change and crap. Meet you outside.” He grins and strides bouncily away.   
  
Brendon walks back to the dressing room in a daze, staring into the mirror without actually seeing anything. So it takes him by surprise when he turns around and the blonde girl is there, giggling to Ryan. Surprise isn’t the word, actually, it’s more of a shock akin to stepping on a land mine.   
  
“Guys, this is Keltie,” Ryan announces. “She’s coming to Pete’s party with us.”   
  
Brendon goes numb after that. He puts on his stage smile and decides not to feel a thing.   
  
Time seems to fly forward to huge gulps, so the next thing he’s conscious of is walking into Pete’s hotel suite and everyone turning and toasting to them. Then there’s a girl buzzing around him, a skinny thing with pink hair, but he doesn’t know what happens to her. And then Ryan’s kissing Keltie, and Brendon grabs a drink off the table, and that’s the end of it.   
  


*****

  
  
He doesn’t come out from his room much for the next few weeks. There are radio interviews and practices and that’s about it. He can hear Keltie giggling from Ryan’s room when he goes downstairs for food at three in the morning. He can hear her giggling from the hallway as he tries to play his guitar in peace. He wants to throw her over the balcony, in a very rational and calm sort of way. It just makes more sense than having her giggling all over the place.   
  
Spencer comes into his room one day. He raises an eyebrow at the stench of molding food and dirty clothes and stale pot smoke.   
  
“What’s going on, Bren,” he says, more of a statement than a question.   
  
“Nothing,” Brendon says from the balcony door.   
  
“Bullshit. Don’t fucking give me that bullshit,” Spencer snaps, his laser-eyes glaring, and Brendon’s actually kind of scared.   
  
“Nothing. I just like playing in private these days, I’m working on some new songs.”   
  
“You don’t like Keltie.” Again, it’s a statement, so Brendon doesn’t see the harm in nodding his head yes. Spencer’s searching his face, eyes narrowed and confused.   
  
“He thinks she’s what he needs,” Spencer says cryptically. “Get the fuck over it.”   
  
Brendon just shrugs, but something in Spencer’s face shifts, like he understands all of a sudden.   
  
“Get over it. For your own good,” Spencer repeats, but kinder this time. Brendon feels like he’s in one of those nightmares where he can’t see what’s chasing him. Spencer grabs four dirty plates and takes them with him when he leaves.   
  
But Brendon tries to takehis words to heart. It makes sense, really. He smokes a little less pot and ventures down into the living room from time to time to play video games with Jon. Luckily, Ryan’s not hard to avoid, as he’s always out with Keltie or locked in his room with Keltie. It’s fairly difficult to ignore them when they’re on their way in or out, but Brendon manages, despite Keltie’s freakish friendliness.   
  


*****

  
  
He doesn’t want to go to Ryan’s birthday party, but Spencer kind of forces him. In the end it’s not so terrible; Keltie only flies in to New York the morning of the party, so Brendon spends three days with the band, mostly succeeding at pretending nothing’s wrong. It only gets really bad the night of the party.   
  
There’s something sick and murderous in his stomach when Keltie pops out of the box, all taut tanned skin and and bits of black lace and too-white smile, and Brendon’s  _burning_  with how much he hates her. And at the moment he hates Ryan too, because the raw twisting anger inside him doesn’t leave room for anything else. He hates the way Ryan’s smiling, hates how good Ryan’s gotten at faking it, hates himself for wondering if maybe that smile isn’t completely false. Because who can blame him if it’s real? Who wouldn’t want a perfect blonde girl writhing and smiling all over them?   
  
But from where Brendon’s standing, tucked against a wall, hidden in the shadows, there’s just something wrong with this picture. Keltie’s too obvious, too obnoxiously uncomplicated, to find the subtleties behind Ryan’s careful blank eyes.   
  
“What the fuck is she wearing,” comes a voice, amused and disapproving and sympathetic from behind him, and Brendon forgot, he doesn’t hate William.   
  
“Hey,” Brendon whispers, without turning around, without taking his eyes off the sickening sight in front of him.   
  
“Having fun torturing yourself?” Bill asks, sliding an arm around Brendon’s shoulders.   
  
“I’m fine,” says Brendon, in a Ryan-worthy monotone.   
  
“C’mere,” murmurs William, and when he pulls Brendon into a hug, Brendon doesn’t resist.   
  
William’s solid and warm and he smells like beer and cologne, and Brendon wants to melt into him and never leave. He clings pathetically to the front of William’s shirt and squeezes his eyes shut, and he had almost forgotten how good it feels to just touch someone, to hold or be held.   
  
“Can’t let the photographers see you, Bren. We should get out of here.”   
  
So Brendon takes one last long look at Ryan and Keltie, their smiles sparkling to match the camera flashes, and lets William guide him to the exit.   
  
“So how are we dealing with this?” William asks, while Brendon swipes his keycard.   
  
“Huh?”  
  
“Chocolate. Sappy movie. Booze. Throwing things. Ice cream. Take your pick,” William says wryly, folding himself down onto a bed. Brendon collapses next to him, heavy and exhausted.   
  
“All of the above,” Brendon decides, but it’s too late, he’s already tearing up.   
  
He’s gotten better, in the last month. He really has. It’s not so immediate any more, not so urgent, just a dull constant hatred in the pit of his stomach, a choking paralyzing  _thing_  that makes him want to scream whenever someone gets too close. But the only way he can keep functioning is to ignore it, to push everything away and pretend nothing happened. And now that William’s  _in it,_  refusing to ignore his sadness, pulling open scabs, poking and prodding and confronting, Brendon can’t help it; he’s crying.  
  
Somehow, because it’s Bill, he doesn’t mind too much. He lets go, sobs ripping through his stomach and burning his throat on the way out.   
  
“Shhh,” croons William, and he curls himself around Brendon like a cocoon.   
  
He’s incapable of explaining, can’t find words for how he feels. William just pulls him closer and lets him cry. Brendon isn’t thinking about Ryan, isn’t thinking about anything at all, but the tears keep coming, rolling endlessly across the bridge of his nose and onto the pillow, while William strokes his hair gently.   
  
He feels brittle when it stops, empty and too light, like he’ll float away without all that anger trapped inside him.   
  
William pulls away for a second, and Brendon makes an embarrassingly needy noise in the back of his throat, but Bill smiles and says, “I’m just telling Gabe I’m not coming back to his place tonight.” When he’s done tapping at keys, he settles back against the bed and pulls Brendon close again.   
  
William’s never been one to force conversation, so it’s silent, and Brendon just  _is._  It’s weird, getting used to contentment after the months of numb unhappiness.   
  
“Thanks,” Brendon whispers into William’s neck, and William opens his eyes to smile down at him, and it’s only natural that their lips should meet.   
  
It’s not the end-of-the-world, rip-out-my-heart-through-my-mouth feeling of kissing Ryan. It’s lazy and comforting, kissing for the sake of kissing, for the sake of being close to someone. At some point, they strip down to their boxers matter-of-factly, just so it’ll be more comfortable when they sleep, and Bill twists around to flip the light switch.   
  
“Thank you,” Brendon repeats, and William doesn’t respond, just presses his mouth to Brendon’s cheek. They kiss, lips barely parted, tongues darting out lightly, until they drift off.   
  
Brendon sleeps through the night, finally. And for the first time in months, he smiles as he opens his eyes in the morning.   
  
“Morning, Bilvy,” he says softly. And then laughs a little, because seriously, William has the best bed-head he’s ever seen; it’s somewhere between Medusa and Pete’s old dreadlocks.   
  
William stretches, tongue poking out of his mouth as he yawns, and Brendon laughs again and says, “You’re a cat.”   
  
William raises an expressive eyebrow. “I’ve heard pussy before, but never cat. What the fuck?”   
  
“Never mind.”   
  
“’Kay. So I’ve gotta run, Gabe’s probably drowning in the toilet bowl as we speak. But do I get to make morning-after innuendos?” He grins cheekily, pulling on his jeans. Brendon just rolls his eyes and mutters, “Can I stop you?”   
  
That’s when they hear someone knocking.   
  
“Come in,” Brendon calls without thinking. His heart does this funny thing when Ryan appears at the door, like it can’t decide whether to leap or crash through the carpet.   
  
“Spence, d’you have any Advil?” Ryan mutters, and he’s too busy scrubbing his eyes with his fists to notice William.   
  
“Spencer isn’t here,” Brendon says in a small voice. Ryan finally looks up. His eyes flicker dazedly between astonishment and surprise and what Brendon would swear is betrayal before finding their default emptiness again.   
  
“Oh,” is all he says, his voice thin and strained.   
  
“Hi, Ryan,” says William pointedly.   
  
“Hi,” he whispers.   
  
William turns back to Brendon, and he’s grinning wickedly, so Brendon guesses what’s going to happen a half-second before William says, “You were great, by the way.” He swishes his way past Ryan and out of the room.   
  
Ryan leans against the doorframe, hunched and pale, his eyes burning.   
  
“Oh,” he says again, barely a puff of air, but it’s pathetically wounded and longing. He steps out and closes the door behind him.   
  
Brendon’s frozen for a moment, shocked into stillness, and then he smiles and thinks,  _God bless William Beckett._


	8. 8/10

_What’d he say,_  comes Bill’s text message, minutes after Ryan leaves.   
  
 _Oh_  
  
 _Ha. So much for the writer._  
  
 _Yeah. Thanks._  
  
 _Anytime gorgeous._  
  
Brendon showers, and Spencer shows up a minute later, looking the dictionary definition of hungover.   
  
“Where’d you spend the night?” Brendon asks laughingly.   
  
“Toilet bowl. Jon’s room,” Spencer grunts, and Brendon just rolls his eyes and hands him his toothbrush.   
  
Pretty much everybody except Brendon is moving a little cautiously when they assemble for breakfast. Ryan shuffles in a few minutes after everyone and grunts as he sits down next to Spencer, who’s green around the mouth, staring at his eggs.   
  
“Just put Kelts in a cab, she had to get home,” Ryan announces, reaching for the coffee.   
  
“Oh, does she have another show or something?” Brendon asks brightly, and Ryan’s bloodshot eyes meet his suspiciously.   
  
“No, other stuff,” Ryan says, and the subtext is clearly,  _Why the fuck do you care._  
  
Brendon doesn’t care. He doesn’t give a rat’s ass about Keltie. But he finally feels okay. For the first time in months, looking at Ryan doesn’t make him want to cry. The tone of Ryan’s voice, that soft little  _oh,_  was enough. He can wait.  
  


*****

  
  
A few days after their return home, Ryan announces that he’s moving in with Keltie.   
  
“Already?” is Spencer’s cynical response.   
  
“It just feels right,” Ryan says proudly. He’s very careful not to avoid Brendon’s eyes, not with their newfound “normalcy.”   
  
“We only have a month left before tour,” Spencer points out.   
  
“Better make the most of it, then.”   
  
The first night Ryan’s out of the condo, Brendon doesn’t miss him. He eats dinner on the couch with Spencer, and they reminisce about the days when they used to be able to pick up their pizza without being mobbed by five or six teenage girls.   
  
“You’d think we’d act like adults, what with having rabid fans and selling a zillion records,” Spencer says thoughtfully, looking around at the takeout carton-strewn floor.   
  
“Nah, we’re rock stars, we’re supposed to live in sin or whatever,” Brendon answers.   
  
“Sin, my ass, we play more video games than anyone I know,” Spencer snorts. Brendon smiles.   
  
“I don’t feel like my life should change, you know?” he says.   
  
“Yeah. You’re the same. I feel the same. Ryan’s sure as hell the same, stubborn secretive bastard,” Spencer says, and it’s casual, but when Brendon looks up, those blue eyes are sharp. Brendon wonders, not for the first time, how much Spencer’s guessed.   
  
“Maybe we should turn his room into our practice room,” Brendon suggests, and he’s grateful when Spencer doesn’t question the change of topic.   
  
It’s easy, living with Spencer, living without Ryan. He slides back into the routine of sleeping by himself, and it’s a relief to not be constantly reminded of everything he no longer has. In a way he dreads the tour.   
  
Still, there are nights where he would swear he can smell Ryan, the vanilla of his deodorant or the clean spiciness of his shampoo, embedded deep in the fabric of his pillowcase. It’s ridiculous, of course. He’s washed his pillowcase at least five times since Ryan was last here. The scent is still there though, so it must be embedded somewhere. His heart, maybe.   
  


*****

  
  
“How are we feeling tonight?” Brendon shouts out to the crowd, and he’s overwhelmed by the wave of screaming. There’s an ocean in front of him, an endless surging mass of faces turned up to him, and he’s dizzyingly reminded of how things have changed.   
  
But it’s very hard to care when Ryan’s standing next to him. Brendon can  _feel_  him even when he’s out of sight, like every molecule in his body is just straining to be closer.   
  
He launches into the song, but he can’t focus, can’t feel anything but that magnetic force.   
This isn’t the timid wanting that he always feels, the constant pull of Ryan’s skin that he’s long since gotten used to. He’s under the spotlight now, after all. This is his time. He’s strutting and preening as he sings, and through it all he can feel what might just be Ryan’s eyes on his body, and he  _wants,_  and in the egotistical bit of his brain that’s currently swinging his hips as he walks across the front of the stage, he thinks that maybe, just maybe, Ryan wants too.   
  
He doesn’t really stop to consider when the idea first flits into his mind, he just goes. He falls to his knees in front of Ryan, stares up at him, eyes challenging and lips curving up into a feral grin, and watches as Ryan’s smile freezes. He barely registers the roar of the crowd.   
  
"But isn’t this exactly where you’d like me?" he sings, every word pointed and sharp, and he knows he’s close enough to Ryan’s crotch that Ryan can feel his breath, feel the words right where Brendon wants him to feel it.   
  
It’s the best show they’ve ever had, and Brendon’s chest is tight to bursting with pride and adrenaline and defiant vindication. Even if Ryan doesn’t want him, someone does. Several thousand someones. He can feel the elation sparkling from his skin as he strides offstage.   
  
Better yet, he can feel Ryan’s eyes on him.   
  
They shower in the dressing room, have a couple victory beers with everyone, and head back to the hotel, and there’s still this triumphant happiness stealing through his body, making him restless and high, making his hips go loose as he walks.   
  
“We should do something, guys,” he says in the hallway of the hotel.   
  
“Go to bed, we leave at eight tomorrow,” Zack says, in that tone Brendon’s mom always used to use. He tosses out keycards.   
  
“No, but seriously,” Brendon protests, and now Spencer’s doing the mom-glare as well.   
  
He’s roomed with Ryan, and somehow that’s not a surprise, not in the least. He throws himself down on the bed, wriggling to make sure his shirt rides up, and waits.   
  
“What was that,” Ryan states, mechanically opening his suitcase, unfolding tomorrow’s clothes and laying them on the chair.   
  
“What do you mean?”   
  
“On stage. You know,” Ryan says softly, his back stiff.   
  
“Playing it up for the crowd,” Brendon says, and there’s enough of a lilt to the end of the sentence that it could easily be a question.   
  
“Why, did you like it? Did you miss it, me kneeling in front of you?” Brendon asks, voice innocent and velvety-smooth. He didn’t mean to say it, but he’s glad he did. Ryan turns to him, eyes deer-in-headlights wide. Even from across the room, Brendon can see him swallow.   
  
“I’m gonna go take a shower,” he whispers, and Brendon thinks Ryan might be trembling as he crosses the room, knuckles white around his shaving kit.   
  
Brendon can hear the door close and the water start, and he can still feel his nerves thrumming. He’s not surprised to find that his pants are suddenly too tight between his legs. It’s another of those thoughtless non-decisions that has him standing, walking unfeelingly to the bathroom and letting himself in. He pulls off his shirt as he slips past the curtain, and Ryan’s staring at him, panting, one hand curled loosely around his hard, flushed cock.   
  
Brendon smirks, letting his eyes linger on Ryan’s dick for a second before meeting his eyes.   
  
Ryan doesn’t look surprised or angry to see him here, still half-dressed in the stinging spray of the shower. He doesn’t look embarrassed to be caught like this. Somehow, this was inevitable, ever since Brendon knelt in front of him. Then again, Ryan and Brendon, they were always inevitable.   
  
Something about Ryan has always just made him melt, lose control, dissolve into a helpless little shadow of himself. And right now it should be worse than ever, what with the glow of Ryan’s skin, porcelain tinted pink, and the drops of water beading over his perfect mouth, sliding down his neck and his narrow chest and his hipbones. Yeah, there’s a part of Brendon that wants to hold him and kiss him and beg him. But then there’s a hard bitter part of him that feels sick, sick of being used, sick of Ryan’s hot-and-cold routine, sick of all of this, sick and  _angry._  
  
“Turn around,” he says, voice slow and even, pulling at his belt buckle. Ryan does, without question, placing his hands on the slippery tiles. Brendon steps out of his already-soaked pants and throws them out of the shower.   
  
“What do you want?” Brendon whispers under the hiss of the water, stepping forward to stroke his fingers over Ryan’s hips.   
  
“You know,” Ryan answers the ground.   
  
“Say it,” Brendon hisses, reaching to Ryan’s shower kit and pulling out his conditioner.   
  
“I want you to fuck me,” Ryan says, still staring at his own feet, and his voice has a desperate edge that might be guilt.   
  
“That’s more like it. If you’re gonna cheat, you should at least be able to admit it to yourself,” Brendon says harshly. He rubs conditioner over his fingers, shaking wet bangs out of his eyes, and then grabs Ryan’s hip to steady himself as he slides the first finger in.   
  
He can see Ryan’s back stiffen, but any noise he makes is covered by the water.   
  
Brendon presses his fingers up quickly, and he feels Ryan push back against him, arching back into his hand. He adds another finger, twisting his knuckles roughly, and he can see Ryan’s breathing quicken, but there’s still no sound from his lips.   
  
He’s about to reach for the conditioner again when he realizes he really doesn’t care if Ryan gets hurt.   
  
So he pushes in quickly, without warning, and Ryan finally cries out. Brendon smiles grimly. He digs his fingers into Ryan’s slippery hips, pulling Ryan closer as he twists in pain.   
  
Brendon realizes this is the first time they’ve had sex when he can’t see Ryan’s face, and as he thrusts in again, brutally careless, he’s glad. It’s not even sex, now. It’s fucking.   
  
Ryan whimpers, groans, broken and helpless, but he doesn’t ask Brendon to go slower. Brendon’s pretty sure Ryan knows he deserves this, Brendon’s teeth biting into his shoulder, Brendon’s fingers trailing up his torso to twist ruthlessly at a nipple, Brendon slamming into him fast and rough. Ryan’s arms are trembling against the wall, each moan coming out more like a sob.   
  
And Brendon, for once, isn’t thinking  _this is heaven,_  he’s thinking  _that’s what you get._  For every  _we can’t,_  for every time Ryan pretended it meant nothing, for every tear Brendon’s shed over him. This is his revenge, the way he knows Ryan must be hurting right now, the red half-moons rising on his hips and the blossoming bruise on his shoulder. Every time he snaps forward, burying himself deep into Ryan, he thinks,  _how dare you._  
  
It’s anger more than pleasure that surges through him, sending waves of shivering heat through his body. The white that flashes over his eyes is rage as he comes, growling deep in his throat, his fingernails drawing blood.   
  
He feels nauseous as he pulls out. Ryan’s still whimpering under his breath, cock red and heavy between his legs, twisting back into the empty space where Brendon used to be, eyes pleading.   
  
“Fine,” Brendon mutters under his breath, and it only takes a few long strokes before Ryan’s spurting over his hand, shaking and slumping against the wall in relief. Brendon cleans his hand under the shower spray and leaves without a backwards glance, but he can still feel Ryan’s eyes. He grabs a towel and dries himself roughly, scrubbing at his skin, and leaves his pants where they fell.   
  
He doesn’t bother to pretend to be asleep when Ryan comes in, towel wrapped around his waist, wincing as he walks to his bed.   
  
“That’s not going to happen again,” Ryan says hoarsely, voice composed. He drops the towel to put on boxers, and the bruise on his shoulder stands out even in the moonlight.   
  
“You don’t like being out of control, do you?” Brendon not-really-answers, and the question’s clearly rhetorical.   
  
“It won’t happen again,” Ryan repeats.   
  
“Maybe not. But at least you’ll have a few days where you can’t walk without feeling me,” Brendon says coldly.   
  
There’s a long pause before Ryan moves again, and Brendon can see the silhouette of his bowed head in the faint blue light from the window.   
  
“Goodnight,” Ryan says finally, formal and stiff, before getting into bed and turning his back to Brendon.   
  


*****

  
  
They’re back to politeness the next morning, to careful smiles and even more careful words. Ryan texts Keltie through breakfast.   
  
Brendon thinks he’s the only one who notices how Ryan grimaces when he climbs the steps to the bus. Something flickers through his brain, some fragment of a sentence that he can’t properly put his finger on. It keeps nagging him through the day, through the stupid action movie they watch and the stop for Starbucks.   
  
But by the time they take the stage that night, it’s fully formed, waiting in the back of his head as he finishes “Tables.”   
  
“Have you ever had a dream…” he begins, nervous energy making his hand tremble around the mic. He closes his eyes as he starts his little speech, remembering those first few nights with Ryan that actually seemed like a dream, remembering the soft look in Ryan’s eyes when they first kissed. “…where you were running through a sunflower field with clouds dancing across a crystal blue sky, your lover running towards you.” He walks slowly toward Ryan as he continues, prowling almost, barely conscious of the screaming in the background. And, okay, yeah, so it’s a crappy metaphor, but he doesn't know how else to say this.   
  
“And you reach for your lover for that first perfect passionate kiss,” he hisses, and he walks right into Ryan’s personal space, leans in as though he would kiss him right there. Ryan pulls away, eyes dark and angry.   
  
“This is not that dream,” Brendon spits, locking eyes with Ryan before turning back to the audience.   
  
“This is hard, sweaty, crazy, angry, monstrous fucking,” he says, rage pulsing behind every word, threatening to make his voice break. The crowd goes wild.   
  


*****

  
  
They’re polite, so fucking polite Brendon can’t stand it sometimes. They’ve had too much practice now to be bad at pretending.   
  
He’s in control now, somehow. Ryan was always the one thing that made him lose control, lose himself. Not anymore. He goes about his business, hangs out with Spencer and Jon, and pretends not to notice when he knows Ryan’s watching him a little too closely.   
  
Ryan texts Keltie almost constantly, fingers flying over the tiny keys of his Sidekick, as if a text will make up for each glance at Brendon’s ass.   
  
They make their way across the country, venue parking lots and cheap hotels blurring into each other, one after the other.   
  
Before he plays a show each night, Brendon ticks off every day on the calendar taped to the wall inside his bunk. Then he pulls out William’s Polaroid from under his pillow, lets his eyes linger over Ryan’s smile for just a moment. There’s still a corner of his heart that’s waiting. He doesn’t like to admit it’s the only thing that keeps him going.   
  


*****

  
  
New York City, of course, means Angels and Kings. Gabe’s there, wearing a little too much neon for Brendon’s taste, already fucked up on something that might not be alcohol. But his smile is infectious, and he buys Brendon a shot and tells him he has a nice ass, and Brendon’s feeling pretty good by the time they get out to the dance floor.   
  
“Bilvy tells me there’s someone you need to make jealous,” Gabe whispers in his ear as they start to dance. Brendon nods. He can see Ryan, standing at the bar with Spencer, throwing back a shot. Ryan can never dance when he’s sober. Well, okay, he can never really dance at all, but.   
  
Brendon’s a different story. He looks up at Gabe from under his eyelashes, rolling his hips, and Gabe laughs and pulls him closer.   
  
By the time Ryan makes it out to the dance floor, Brendon’s almost having too much fun to care. He can feel the adrenaline surging, making his skin glow under the lights. The heat of Gabe against his back, the heat of the nameless bodies writhing around them, the pounding bass of the music…Brendon’s lost in it. He knows he looks good, knows Ryan’s watching his hips with big dark eyes, and it’s a surge of power that makes him smile even wider.   
  
“Bathroom, be right back,” Gabe says as the song ends, and Brendon nods, walking straight to Ryan, who’s swaying a little on the spot, wiping sweaty hair out of his eyes.   
  
“Dance?” Brendon asks, and before Ryan has a chance to respond, he slides a hand around Ryan’s waist and presses their hips tight together. They find their rhythm quickly, rocking back and forth, pulsing with the music. Song after song passes. He doesn’t know where Gabe went and doesn’t care. Ryan’s eyes are dark and alcohol-unfocused, his mouth gaping open slightly. It’s an electric shock when Brendon shifts his hips a little and feels that Ryan’s hard.   
  
Brendon realizes how easy it would be to just kiss him.   
  
But then Spencer taps them on the shoulder, motions to where Zack is standing at the edge of the crowd looking stern, and it’s time to go.   
  
They’re staying at the same hotel as they did on Ryan’s birthday, except this time, Ryan and Brendon are rooming together. Brendon heads to the bathroom first, to splash some cold water on his face. When he comes back into the room, Ryan’s sitting on a bed, staring intently at him.   
  
“You still drunk?” Brendon asks carelessly, stripping off his shirt.   
  
“Maybe a little,” Ryan murmurs, and before Brendon can register the movement, Ryan’s slipping off the bed and splaying one hand over Brendon’s bare chest to push him against the wall. He can feel Ryan’s breath hot on his face, feel the force of those huge dark pupils.   
  
“What are you doing?” Brendon says, and it’s not really a question.  
  
“I want you,” Ryan says softly, staring down at Brendon’s mouth. Brendon can feel a familiar twisting sickness rising in his chest.   
  
“What about Keltie?” he whispers.   
  
“What about her? She doesn’t have to know,” Ryan counters, and he pushes their mouths together.   
  
It’s been too long since he kissed Ryan. He melts into it, molds himself against Ryan’s body, lets the room slip away. It’s wonderfully familiar, the contours of his mouth, the soft pressure of his tongue. He can feel little sparks exploding in his brain.   
  
But it’s wrong. He pushes Ryan away, maybe a little too roughly, so Ryan collides with the bed.   
  
“You have a girlfriend,” Brendon hisses.   
  
“I want you. I miss you,” Ryan says, and it must be the alcohol talking, but he’s lying back on the bed and pulling off his shirt, and Brendon can’t help himself. He crawls up Ryan’s body, kisses him bruisingly hard, gasps in spite of himself when he feels Ryan’s erection press into his own.   
  
“One sec,” he whispers, and rummages in his suitcase until he finds a condom. When he turns around again, Ryan’s naked, staring up at him hungrily.   
  
Brendon hates him for it. He hates the control Ryan has over him, hates the cheating, hates this constant back-and-forth. And he hates himself more than anything, for going along with it.   
  
“On your knees,” Brendon grits out. Ryan’s there before he can finish the sentence.   
  
Brendon sheds his pants and crawls up onto the bed again, sliding a hand down Ryan’s neck, down his shoulder blades, down the ridges of his back. He drags his fingernails against the curve of Ryan’s ass, presses one finger against his entrance. He can feel a shudder go through his stomach, crippling desire, his blood pounding in his dick, and he  _wants._  No matter how well he pretends, he missed Ryan’s pale smooth skin, the smell of his sweat.   
  
“Do you want me to, Ry?” he says raggedly, rubbing his knuckle gently over Ryan’s hole, biting his lip to keep from groaning as Ryan lets out a whimper, desperate, pleading already. He pulls his hand away to quickly lick his fingers, then shoves one inside Ryan without warning, and Ryan lets out a broken gasp that’s somewhere between pain and ecstasy. He’s shaking from the effort of holding himself up, and Brendon feels this surge of vindictive pleasure, hot and dangerous.   
  
“I bet you’re not like this with Keltie,” Brendon growls, and he smiles in satisfaction when he feels Ryan clench tight around him. “I bet you don’t fall apart when you’re with her,” he continues, and he’s so glad he can’t see Ryan’s face right now. “Because, Ryan, when you’re with me, you’re out of control,” he breathes, crooking his finger  _hard_ , so Ryan shoves against him, arching his back.   
  
Brendon stops moving, lets Ryan twist back against him, fucking himself on Brendon’s fingers as Brendon just keeps talking, his voice silky smooth. “You just let yourself go, Ry, when you’re with me, when I’m fucking you, when I’ve got you all spread out under me, helpless and panting and writhing. I bet you’re not like that with her, I bet you’re all composed and calm. I bet she can’t make you feel what I make you feel,” he hisses, and on the last sentence, he can’t help but let some of the venom seep through into his voice.   
  
He slips the second finger inside Ryan, shoving past the resistance, twisting his knuckles around again and again so that Ryan’s babbling, moaning disconnected syllables, and some of them are curses and some are Brendon’s name but not one sounds like a denial.   
  
Something breaks inside Brendon. “I can’t do this,” he murmurs. He pulls his fingers out, slides off the bed and yanks on his boxers.   
  
“What? Why?” Ryan whimpers, still on his knees, panting, waiting.   
  
“I can’t do this,” Brendon repeats, almost to himself, trying to calm his heavy breathing. “Ry…” he looks up helplessly. “This is making me sick, Ry. I can’t keep doing this. It has to be all or nothing. Me or Keltie. A relationship, or nothing. We can’t keep messing around like this. We’re fucking each other up, we’re fucking everything up.”   
  
“It’s not that simple,” Ryan breathes, snatching his own clothes off the floor to cover himself.   
  
“It has to be,” Brendon says. “Make up your mind.”   
  
“I can’t,” Ryan whispers, and his voice breaks.   
  
“Then I can’t do this,” Brendon says firmly.   
  
Ryan watches him with desperate eyes as he gets into his own bed and turns off the light. He squeezes his eyes shut and hears the rustle of sheets that means Ryan's sliding betwen the covers.   
  
As Brendon drifts off, he’s pretty sure he doesn’t have anything left to wait for. 


	9. 9/10

He feels heavy the next morning, heavy and hopeless, and it takes a moment for everything to come back. Then it’s like a sudden lead weight settles in his stomach, and all he wants to do is curl up and sleep for another year.   
  
“We have to be downstairs in fifteen minutes, Brendon,” Ryan says, ten minutes later, when Brendon still hasn’t lifted his head from his pillow. He stumbles out of bed and pulls on jeans, then slides back into bed until Ryan says they actually have to go. Brendon tries very hard not to look at him, but even out of the corners of his eyes Ryan is slumped and faded and looking exactly how Brendon feels. The elevator ride is the longest of his life.  
  
Zack is waiting downstairs to herd them onto the bus. Spencer and Jon are already in the front, nursing cups of coffee, and Brendon’s far too lazy to coax his face into smiling, so he just crawls into his bunk and tries his best to go back to sleep. He hears a low murmur of a conversation up front, then the rumble of the engine starting up and footsteps in the bunk area. There’s a soft thump that must be Ryan dropping his bag before he pads away into the bathroom.   
  
He thinks he’s imagining it at first. But the wall between his head and the bathroom is too thin to disguise any noise, and he can hear every hitched, shaking sob, hear the slam of Ryan’s fist against some unlucky part of the room. Brendon squeezes his eyes shut tighter, fumbles around frantically for his iPod. For all the times he’s seen Ryan cry, he’s never heard him like this, like he absolutely can’t control himself. The noise is muffled, like Ryan’s biting down on something, but every ragged little cry is unbearably clear. Brendon seizes his iPod and is about to sigh in relief when he hears footsteps through the bunk area and a rap on the bathroom door.   
  
“Ry, hurry up, I have to pee,” Spencer says lazily.  
  
“One second,” comes Ryan’s thin, shaky voice.   
  
“Ryan? Are you okay? What’s going on?” says Spencer, going from sleepy to sharp in a fraction of a second.   
  
“Nothing,” Ryan protests feebly. Brendon waits for Ryan to give some excuse about missing Keltie, but instead he hears Spencer.   
  
“Brendon,” he growls. Brendon feels like he just missed a step going down the stairs.   
  
“What? No,” Ryan squeaks. A second later, Spencer’s ripping open the curtain of Brendon’s bunk.   
  
“Brendon, get out here,” he grits, and then calls, “Ryan! Come here right the fuck now.” And Brendon’s  _scared._ Spencer’s eyes are twin death rays of electric blue, and he tugs at Brendon’s hand until Brendon and Ryan are standing face to face in the narrow bunk area, Spencer between them with his hands on his hips. “Don’t give me  _nothing_ , Ryan fucking Ross, I am sick of your shit, both of you! What the fuck. Seriously, guys, what the fuck.” Spencer’s full-on yelling now.   
  
“What do you mean?” Brendon whispers. He’s pretty sure he knows, but it’s worth a try.  
  
“I mean you guys. Doing whatever the fuck you’ve been doing for the last year, you selfish bastards,” Spencer hisses.   
  
“You knew?” says Ryan. He looks like he might pass out at any second, traces of tears still shining on his cheekbones.   
  
“Jesus Christ, Ross! I’ve known you since we were five! You think I can’t read you like a motherfucking children’s book? Late for sound check, this weird dreamy look on your face all the time, not to mention how I had to sleep with my iPod in whenever you guys roomed together. And then Brendon didn’t come out of his room for a month when you went off with Keltie. Honestly, what the fuck, do I look like an idiot?” Spencer’s spitting with anger.   
  
Ryan sits, just crumples in on himself and folds to the ground, looking up at them with big helpless eyes.   
  
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Brendon asks, staring at the ugly beige carpet, trying not to puke.  
  
“Figured you didn’t know what to tell me,” Spencer says, softer, far too perceptive for Brendon’s liking.   
  
Brendon should feel vindicated, maybe. He should feel hopeful, maybe, or relieved, now that it’s out in the open. He should feel anything but sick, physically nauseous and emotionally exhausted, like there are jagged edges somewhere inside him and if he moves the wrong way they’ll cut him to shreds.   
  
“Sorry,” Ryan says hoarsely, and Brendon wants to punch him.   
  
“It’ll be okay,” Jon says. Brendon hadn’t even noticed him appearing at the door. It’s oddly comforting just to hear those words, even if it’s been so long since Brendon actually believed them, and Jon looks the same as always, placid and unworried.   
  
“Now what?” Brendon asks him.   
  
“Want to go play some Halo?” Jon smiles. Brendon really meant it in a more long-term, large decisions, please-fix-my-life-for-me kind of way, but Halo works too.   
  
“Yes. You do that. I’m gonna talk to my emotionally retarded best friend now,” Spencer growls. He pulls Ryan into the front, and Jon and Brendon head into the back lounge.  
  
Brendon doesn’t cry, just collapses against Jon, clinging for dear life, and Jon holds him, warm and safe.   
  
"I can't believe you both knew," Brendon says, because his brain is having way too many thoughts to pick a logical starting point for all this.   
  
"Your attention was elsewhere," Jon points out dryly.   
  
"But if you knew all along we could have just skipped all the complicated crap. It's like all that shit was for nothing," Brendon says weakly into Jon's shoulder.   
  
"I think..." Jon says slowly, "I think, with Ryan, it would always have been complicated."   
  
"So I was fucked from the beginning."   
  
"Maybe. Maybe not. You'll never know, will you? Love isn't always complicated like that. But it's Ryan. If he wasn't ready, there was never anything you could have done to change his mind. It's Ryan."   
  
And there it is, plain and simple. It’s Ryan. There's nothing Brendon could have done, because the reasons Ryan's so difficult to love are part of him, inextricably linked to all the reasons Brendon's been head-over-heels for what seems like a lifetime now.  
  
"Now what?" Brendon asks again, and Jon rubs soothing circles on his back.   
  
"You move on. You apologize to Spencer and maybe grovel a little until he forgives you. We record a second album. You and Ryan get used to each other again. Someday, you fall in love with someone else. Right now, you play Halo, and when the tour ends, you come out to visit me in Chicago. Okay?"   
  
He makes it sound easy. "Okay," Brendon says.  
  
They blow things up for a while. Spencer comes in, offering a sheepish smile to Brendon, and Brendon wonders whether groveling is still necessary.   
  
“Ryan?” Jon asks. Spencer shakes his head, gestures toward the bunks, and rolls his eyes expressively, his mouth tightened into a thin line. Brendon’s pretty sure that means he’s forgiven, but lets Spencer win the next few games just in case.   
  
They don’t see Ryan until the bus pulls into the venue parking lot that night, when he stumbles out of his bunk, blank-eyed and pale. Jon greets him with a smile; Brendon averts his eyes. Spencer cocks a hip and snaps out that they’re late.   
  
The show isn’t great that night, but it’s not bad either. Brendon doesn’t touch Ryan, though. He wouldn’t mind the thousands of screaming faces and the countless camera flashes, but he knows that Jon and Spencer would be watching, and that’s too much.   
  
*****  
  
They learn to breathe in each others’ space again, over the last two weeks of tour. Brendon feels like he’s being watched, and he catches them at it a couple times; Spencer staring closely as Ryan and Brendon sit across from each other at breakfast, Jon’s gaze just a bit too focused in the mirror as Brendon gets ready for each show. It takes a few days for him to think that maybe they’ve been watching all along, and he just never noticed.   
  
He appreciates it, in a way. It’s a relief to not have to pretend any more that he wants to talk to Ryan, a relief that the Jon and Spencer carefully maneuver so that he and Ryan are never left alone together. It’s a fragile little dance that they’re all stepping through, but Jon and Spencer are  _there_ , solid, reassuring, and he’s pretty sure they’re going to get through it.   
  
Ryan, for his part, rarely leaves his bunk, even though Brendon saw Spencer hugging him one night after a show. Spencer may have forgiven him, but Brendon knows he won’t forgive himself for a while. It’s Ryan, after all.   
  
The bright spot on the horizon is Chicago. Jon switches Brendon’s flight without being asked, and the next day Brendon gets a call from William. No hello, just, “So, you’re staying with me, right?”   
  
“I think Jon…” Brendon starts.   
  
“Nope. I have a spare bedroom, Jon doesn’t. I haven’t seen you in months, Jon has. You’re staying with me, end of discussion.” Brendon smiles broader than he has in weeks.   
  
*****  
  
Goodbyes are awkward, but the flight’s short and easy, just a couple hours of staring out the window while Jon snores next to him. Something in him lifts as the plane touches down.   
  
Bill’s waiting at the arrivals gate. Brendon wonders whether he should do the manly thing and fist-bump, but William wraps him in a full bear hug before he can make a move, and another weight lifts. Brendon doesn’t talk much as William drives them to his apartment, just lets Jon tell tour stories. He can see William glancing at him every so often in the mirror, and he smiles a little.   
  
William’s apartment is small and messy and warm. He orders pizza, while Brendon and Jon bicker over the TV. They end up watching some stupid sports game until the pizza guy arrives, but Brendon doesn’t mind. There’s something about being in a  _home_  again after tour that almost makes him regret how much time they spend on the road. Jon and Bill are arguing about baseball over his head, and he’ll be able to sleep in a real bed tonight, and he doesn’t have to worry about running into Ryan on his way out of the bathroom or something. As soon as that thought hits, it’s like everything just dissipates, the last of the weight is gone.   
  
“Shut the fuck up, guys, baseball’s stupid,” he pipes up in the middle of Jon and William’s conversation. They both look at him with identical expressions of shock.   
  
“Oh no you didn’t,” William says, a deadly-serious look on his face. “Hold him.”   
  
Brendon’s literally saved by the bell just as Jon’s pinning him to the couch. William pulls back and seems to decide that food is more important than retribution, so Jon halfheartedly gives Brendon a noogie while William answers the door.   
  
“You’re not the pizza guy,” Brendon hears. He’s pinned under Jon, so he can’t see.   
  
“Nope, ran into him in the hallway,” somebody says. The voice is only vaguely familiar, but there’s this shift in Jon’s expression, a suppressed smile and a light in his eyes, and Brendon’s freed as Jon springs off the couch.   
  
It’s Tom Conrad standing in the hallway, and Brendon wonders, a bit ashamed, how he missed  _that._  William’s rolling his eyes in the background, holding two pizza boxes, while Jon stops short of Tom and just says, shy and happy and so unlike Jon, “Hey.”   
  
“Hey,” Tom replies. Brendon thinks if he had ever looked at Ryan like that, it was no wonder Spencer had figured everything out.   
  
“So. Uh. You gonna stay for food?” Jon says, too casually.   
  
“Fuck yeah, considering I just paid for it,” Tom laughs.   
  
“Bren, help me with plates?” William says pointedly. Jon and Tom don’t seem to notice when he slips by them.   
  
He just stands in the kitchen while William busies himself with plates, making maybe a little too much noise.   
  
“So,” Brendon starts. Something in him is squirming uncomfortably.   
  
“You didn’t have any idea, did you?” William laughs. “The look on your face.”   
  
“Spencer was right,” Brendon says guiltily. “We were so fucking selfish.”   
  
William gives him a searching look and starts passing him Coke cans from the fridge. “C’mon, pizza time,” he says eventually.   
  
Brendon curls up in an armchair and lets the other three take the couch. They bicker happily over the baseball game and William’s haircut, and Tom tells them about his new band, and Brendon watches. He likes the way Jon and Tom fit together, because it’s true, they just  _fit._  They don’t kiss or touch, and it wouldn’t be noticeable if you didn’t know them, but occasionally they lock eyes and smile, and it’s a calm quiet confident smile that makes them both glow. Brendon wants  _that._  
  
The baseball game ends with the Chicagoans hissing at the TV, and Brendon takes advantage of the distraction to grab the last slice of pizza.   
  
“Movie?” William asks.   
  
“I think we’re gonna call it a night, actually,” Jon says casually. “See you tomorrow for brunch, maybe?”   
  
“Have fun,” William leers, with an over-exaggerated wink. Tom laughs and flips him off, and they shrug on their coats.   
  
William waves them out the door and returns to the couch with a bottle of Jack’s and two shot glasses.   
  
“We’re going to get drunk and watch shitty horror movies,” he announces, and Brendon can’t argue with that. They put in Cabin Fever and do a shot whenever the characters start making out at inappropriate times. Brendon’s not quite drunk by the end, but he’s close. He nestles his head in William’s shoulder and watches the credits.   
  
“Why didn’t I fall in love with you?” he says plaintively.   
  
“Good question. I’m funny, and I have great hair and amazing legs, I’m in touch with my emotions, and I’m fantastic in bed,” William giggles. “C’mon, more shots.”   
  
“Seriously,” Brendon pouts.   
  
“Life doesn’t work that way,” William shrugs. “Drink. Time to be emo tomorrow when the hangovers kick in, right now we’re having fun.”   
  
When Brendon wakes up the next morning, drooling on William’s chest, he has a vague memory of attempting a handstand and an even more vague memory of William dancing shirtless to Christina Aguilera, but his headache is too blinding to even attempt to remember any more. He does not, however, feel emo, not in the slightest.   
  
They spend the day with Jon, Tom, and Sisky, and Bill only has to elbow him once to snap him out of a Ryan-induced sulking fit. They all go out to a movie and then get kicked out of a late-night diner when Sisky upends his plate of fries over Jon’s head, and it’s one in the morning by the time Brendon and William end up back at the apartment.   
  
“Bed, or alcohol and shenanigans and then bed?” William says thoughtfully.   
  
“Dunno, you pick,” Brendon says, sprawling across the couch.   
  
“You should know me by now, I always vote alcohol,” William laughs. He returns to the couch and tips the bottle up to Brendon’s lips, and a trail of fire goes down into his stomach. William wedges himself onto the couch next to Brendon, wriggling and practically  _cutting_  Brendon with his elbows, Jesus. They end up with Brendon kind of tilted to one side, his leg draped over William’s hip, William’s head resting in the curve of Brendon’s neck. It’s not a good angle for drinking, and half the Jack’s ends up on William’s shirt, but they manage.   
  
Brendon’s good and drunk (and the conversation has drowsily meandered from JonandTom to William’s tattoo ideas to the various merits of couches) before there’s a long enough silence that he can (sort of) think.   
  
“I wonder what Ryan and Keltie are doing,” he says lazily.   
  
“Jesus, really? Plan B, then,” William yawns, and he sets the bottle down on the ground with what Brendon thinks is remarkable coordination, before lying on his side and snaking an arm down to palm at Brendon’s crotch. Brendon makes a surprised, but not entirely displeased, noise, and then hums happily as William nips at his neck.   
  
“I like Plan B,” he says sleepily, and twists his head around to join their lips in a sloppy kiss. He shifts over on his side and rocks against William’s hand.   
  
They jerk each other off almost carelessly, too comfortable and drunk to really get into it, but it’s  _nice,_ Brendon thinks, because this is the first time in a long time that a hand on his dick comes free of emotional consequences. He rolls his hips gently into the curl of William’s fist, licks a trail across his collarbone and tastes spilled alcohol and sweat. It’s almost a surprise when he comes, spilling over their stomachs just a few seconds before William follows, arching back with a moan and that familiar catlike grin.   
  
It takes a few minutes for the orgasm haze to wear off enough that his brain starts functioning again. “Wait,” he says suspiciously, and William stops nuzzling his neck long enough to raise his eyebrows innocently. “Plan B?”   
  
William smirks. “Don’t tell me you’re complaining.”   
  
“Why wouldn’t my dick be Plan A? For, like, everything,” Brendon says, affronted.   
  
“War in Iraq? Global warming? Ladies and gentlemen, we have a solution,” William cries to the empty room.   
  
“Lolz. My dick,” Brendon giggles, and William’s still drunk enough that he tumbles off the couch when he starts laughing.   
  
“Dude,” he snorts, breathless, when he recovers enough to talk. “Please tell me you didn’t just use online abbreviation in regular conversation. Fucktard.”   
  
“Says he who just fell off the couch,” Brendon huffs.   
  
“Whatever. C’mon, let’s actually sleep in a bed tonight. Plus, I have jizz on my shirt.”   
  
They clean up and crawl into William’s bed, molding comfortably against each other. Brendon’s almost asleep when William murmurs into his hair, “My plan was to keep you occupied so you won’t have time to think about Ryan.”   
  
“Asshole,” Brendon says affectionately.   
  
“Well, we can talk now if you want,” William says dryly.   
  
“Nah, too tired.”   
  
“See? I’m an evil genius.”   
  
“Shut up and go to sleep.”  
  
“Love you too, Bren.”   
  
William’s as good as his word. For the next week, Brendon doesn’t have time to spare for thoughts of Ryan. They hang out with the guys most days, sitting around a living room playing music or just getting high, and at night they watch movies or go see Tom’s new band. Friends are great distractions, Brendon finds, and William’s mouth doesn’t hurt either. Every night (and a shower, once) ends with a blowjob. To hell with Brendon’s dick, William’s mouth is clearly the answer to the world’s problems.   
  
It’s not until the last night, when he’s already half-asleep with William’s breath tickling his neck, that the subject really comes up.   
  
“So. You want to talk about it?” William says, muffled in Brendon’s skin.   
  
Brendon considers it. But really, what is there to talk about?   
  
“It hurt. But things hurt, and then they get better,” Brendon says simply. He can feel William’s smile on his neck. Smug bastard.   
  
It  _sucks,_  no other word for it, to hug them goodbye at the airport the next morning. Jon comes to see him off too, even though he’ll be down in Vegas in just two weeks to start recording their new album.   
  
“Give him a good kick in the nuts from me,” William whispers into Brendon’s ear, with one last squeeze.   
  
*****   
  
“Um,” Spencer says as Brendon opens the door to the condo, and he would ask what Spencer sounds so guilty about but the answer is staring him in the face. Ryan. Ryan with his hair sticking up and his pajama bottoms hanging low on his hips and his mouth pressed into a surprised, tense line. He’s all Brendon can see.  
  
“What are you doing here?” Brendon asks evenly. He would glare at Spencer, but Spencer seems to have evaporated as soon as Brendon and Ryan locked eyes.   
  
“I could ask you the same thing,” Ryan says defensively, “I didn’t know when you were getting back, Spencer told me he was going out to get groceries.” It’s so childish that Brendon wants to laugh.   
  
There’s a long silence while they look each other up and down. Ryan got a haircut. He’s clutching a mug of coffee like it’s a life preserver, and Brendon missed him more than he had thought, but that’s okay.   
  
Ryan looks down into his mug, takes a quick sip. “I broke up with Keltie,” he says softly.   
  
For all the times he’s imagined those words, Brendon doesn’t know what to feel, because he knows they don’t mean what he wants them to mean. Ryan’s looking down into his coffee, uncertain and maybe a bit sad, and that’s just…not how this was supposed to go, somehow.   
  
Brendon takes a deep breath and sits down on the couch. He wonders idly how Keltie took it, what Ryan told her. Not well, he would guess. And anything but the truth, he’s sure.  
  
“Okay,” he says. It’s more of a question than a statement.   
  
“I don’t know,” Ryan says, and he sits down tentatively next to Brendon. “I just,” he swallows, “I don’t know.”   
  
“Don’t know what, Ryan?” Brendon says wearily, because it’s like they’ve had this fucking conversation a thousand fucking times, and Brendon’s pretty sure nothing’s ever going to change.   
  
Ryan’s hands clench around his mug, and he says, monotone, “You’re right to hate me. I hate me. I hate myself. More than I thought I would.” Ryan isn’t looking at him, but instead staring at the opposite wall, forehead scrunched, trying to squint himself away.   
  
“No,” Brendon says, maybe more warmly than Ryan deserves. It’s true. Brendon doesn’t hate him, never did, although maybe he should have. He hated himself, more than anything, but he could never hate Ryan.   
  
“I’m sorry,” Ryan says again, like he doesn’t know what else he can do.   
  
"I loved you," Brendon says simply, easily, and Ryan winces, collapsing in on himself like he’s been punched. Brendon waits, to see if he's going to speak, and then continues. "I loved you, you know I did. I thought, at least for a little while, that you…But. You got over it? You decided I wasn’t worth it, wasn’t worth…what? Being different, having something people might not understand?"   
  
Ryan's breathing shallowly and staring into his coffee, and for a split second, Brendon pities him without really knowing why.   
  
“I wasn’t sure it would be enough,” Ryan whispers, barely audible. “I’m sorry. I fucked up.”   
  
“We both fucked up,” Brendon corrects.  _It wasn’t your fault I fell in love with you,_  he thinks.  _It wasn’t your fault that I couldn’t stop._  
  
Ryan nods. Brendon can see his Adam’s apple bob.   
  
“I guess this is where we say we should still be friends,” Ryan says, with this twisted little grin.   
  
“Yeah,” Brendon smiles, and tries to find words to tell Ryan how much he means it. He feels scrubbed clean, raw and open and relieved. Ready.   
  
They stare not exactly at each other for a minute, Brendon gazing at a point on Ryan’s shoulder and wondering if he should say something more, but Spencer raps pointedly on the doorframe.   
  
“You done yet?” he asks, stepping into the room cautiously.   
  
“Yeah,” Brendon says, and it feels like the truth. Things aren't alright, not yet. But they will be.   
  
“I’m just gonna…go,” Ryan says hesitantly. “Keltie said she only needed a couple hours for her stuff.”   
  
“No, stay for dinner,” Spencer says firmly.   
  
 _Friendship,_  Brendon thinks.   
  
*****  
  
Something Ryan said is replaying in a loop in his head, persistent, like it has something to tell him.   
  
 _I wasn’t sure it would be enough._  
  
He can’t get rid of it, not for the next two weeks. Through the bustle of making arrangements and packing for the cabin, it’s there, itching, nagging, and he can't figure out why.   
  
 _I wasn’t sure it would be enough._  
  
And the look on Ryan’s face as he said it, like he had had to force the words out.  _What_  would be enough?  
  
 _I wasn’t sure…_  
  
It hits him the night before they’re supposed to leave for the cabin. He’s lying half-awake when the jolt of realization shoots through him, and for a good five minutes he thinks it over, again and again, trying to convince himself he’s wrong.   
  
The words come first, something new for him. He knows it’s a song without even considering a melody, and he scrambles out of bed to scribble them down on a scrap of paper, not caring whether it’s good writing or not, just spilling thoughts down without pause.   
  
It’s not so much hope that fills him when he’s done, when he stares at what he’s written and remembers, one more time,  _I wasn’t sure it would be enough._  It’s not so much hope as peace. It doesn’t hurt any more, to think of what was or what could have been. There's still that ragged little twinge of pain when he thinks of Ryan's smile, but the regret is gone.   
  
The next morning, as they’re loading up the car with their bags, Brendon slips the scrap of paper into Ryan’s duffel bag. It’s the best way he can think to say  _I get it._


	10. 10/10

“Home sweet home,” Jon says, as they pull into the driveway of the cabin.   
  
They grab duffels out of the trunk and head inside, leaving the trailer to unpack later. It’s…well, it’s definitely a cabin, Brendon thinks as they step inside. Everything is wood, from the floor to the exposed ceiling beams. The first floor is basically one big room, but the kitchen and what will be the music room are separated by the staircase. There’s a gigantic overstuffed couch in front of the TV, right next to a huge fireplace that he’s pretty sure they won’t be using; even here in the mountains, it’s a good 80 degrees. Above the fireplace, much to Brendon’s delight, is a huge stuffed buffalo head.   
  
They admire the view from the front porch over the lake, and through the trees, they can see one of those cheap floating docks. They go upstairs to claim bedrooms. Brendon’s room has a skylight, and it takes a grand total of five minutes for him to find a ladder and climb onto the roof, where the view is even better.   
  
They christen the cabin by smoking on the roof, and by the time they’ve hauled their instruments in from the trailer, it’s late afternoon. They deicde to unpack, and Brendon's nervous when they all reconvene in the living room, but Ryan doesn't say anything, doesn't look at Brendon differently, just curls in a chair with his notebook. Brendon grabs his guitar and perches on the couch.   
  
“Noses for cooking duty,” Spencer says, and he and Jon have their fingers up immediately.   
  
“Fucksticks,” Brendon pouts, his hands full of guitar.   
  
“Huh?” Ryan says a half-second later, looking up from his notebook with his eyes unfocused.   
  
“That’s so not fair,” Brendon protests.   
  
“We’ll do it tomorrow,” Spencer says.   
  
“Sweet. Halo or Rock Band, Spence?” Jon asks.   
  
“Rock Band? Seriously? We are a fucking rock band,” Ryan points out, disgruntled.   
  
“Yeah, but it’s more fun when there are scores,” Jon counters.   
  
“And you get to wear, like, space goggles. Off to the kitchen, wifey, I’m hungry,” Spencer grins. Ryan flips him off and gets up with a sigh.   
  
“Make sure he doesn’t burn the house down,” Jon says to Brendon as he follows. Brendon gives him a quick salute.   
  
Ryan’s staring disconsolately into the cupboard. “Pasta?” he says half-heartedly.   
  
“You forget, you’re cooking with Brendon Urie, chef extraordinaire. I will make you pasta like you’ve never had before.”   
  
“What do I have to do?” Ryan asks.   
  
“Put a pot of water on the stove, you’ll burn anything else,” Brendon laughs. It’s sadly true, he knows from experience, but he can hear the hesitation in his own voice, the question of whether he’s allowed to joke with Ryan yet.   
  
While Ryan fills a pot, Brendon starts slicing garlic, tomatoes, and olives. Ryan sits at the table when he’s done and watches, and it’s not as awkward as Brendon would have expected. It’s peaceful, the smell of garlic and the distant sounds of Rock Band, and the rhythm of chopping always sends him back to nights spent helping his mom cook.   
  
“Brendon?” he hears from behind him, timid.   
  
“Yeah?” His heartbeat speeds up a little; he can’t help it. There’s a long silence.   
  
“Never mind.” Ryan’s voice sounds disappointed, somehow. Brendon tries to bury his own disappointment.  
  
“Here, you should at least try to be some sort of help,” Brendon says lightly, and he turns around, brandishing the chopping knife and a packet of sage. Ryan raises an eyebrow and wrinkles his nose.   
  
“Fine, but I’m going to end up bleeding into the sauce,” he threatens. “What do I do?”  
  
“Here, you want to just put these on the chopping board, I already washed them.” Brendon watches from over Ryan’s shoulder. “And then you cut them up. Not too big…No, not like that, that’s how you take off a finger,” Brendon says urgently. Ryan looks at him, and somehow, just the set of his mouth is dripping with sarcasm.   
  
“Do I need to say I told you so?” he says dryly. Brendon rolls his eyes.   
  
“I can’t stop you. Here, like this, you’ve got to hold the tip down with your palm so you get more control. That’s right,” he instructs, and somehow ends up watching Ryan’s face, screwed up in concentration, instead of the knife.   
  
“Done,” Ryan says triumphantly.   
  
“Good,” Brendon smiles.   
  
They grin at each other for a long moment, and Brendon feels like it’s uncharted territory. How long is too long? Cause, yeah, their smiles are genuine enough, but they’re still so  _new._  
  
“Now what?” Ryan asks, nervously clearing his throat.   
  
“Oh. Right. Um. We’ll need a small saucepan and some butter, hang on,” Brendon says, and it’s a relief to be back where he knows what he’s doing.   
  


*****

  
  
Their first day is a fairly lazy one. There’s not much for Spencer and Jon to do until they’ve got lyrics and a melody, so they head down to the lake. Brendon’s fingers are itching to try out a new chord progression, but it’s too gorgeous outside to sit in the music room, so he brings his guitar out to the porch. He can see Spencer and Jon having what looks like an epic splash battle.   
  
“Hey,” comes Ryan’s voice from behind him. He’s curled in a chair with his notebook on his lap.   
  
“Oh. Sorry, I didn’t see you,” Brendon says awkwardly.   
  
“No problem,” Ryan smiles cautiously.   
  
Brendon gestures wordlessly to a chair, and Ryan nods, so he settles down and starts to play. He fiddles around for a while, just fingering his way through some new ideas. He can feel Ryan’s eyes on him, making his skin prickle.   
  
“What are you working on?” Brendon asks.   
  
“Nothing. I have no idea what to write about,” Ryan says sheepishly, and Brendon can see his hair sticking up where he must have been running a hand through it in frustration.   
  
“Write about anything,” Brendon says, and Ryan shoots him a pointed, you-are-so-not-helping look. Brendon rolls his eyes. “Write about the clouds,” he says randomly, and returns to his guitar.   
  
He can feel Ryan watching him for a second more before bursting out, “How am I supposed to-“ He cuts himself off abruptly and scribbles a few lines in his notebook, pen scratching angrily at the page. “I’m not stoned enough for this,” he says, and gets up, leaving his notebook on his chair.   
  
Brendon tries to resist, but it’s  _right there,_  still open to Ryan’s last page. He grabs it guiltily, fingers shaking.   
  
In Ryan’s unmistakable spiky handwriting, there are three lines, scattered across the page and seemingly unrelated.   
  
First, at the top, written large and underlined:  _If you just knew._  
  
And then, father down:  _I never gave a damn about the weather, and it never gave a damn about me.  
  
If I go to hell will you come with me or just leave?_  
  
Brendon glances up quickly at the door to make sure Ryan’s still occupied, then leafs back a page. Here, there are just two sloppy paragraphs.   
  
 _Well, he was just hanging around, then he fell in love  
and he didn't know how, but he couldn't get out.  
Just hanging around, then he fell in love._  
  
There’s an arrow drawn from those lines, extending to a note that says “So fucking subtle.” Brendon almost laughs, but there’s something funny going on in his stomach after reading. He goes on to the next block of text.   
  
 _When the moon found the sun, he looked like he was barely hanging on  
but her eyes saved his life  
in the middle of summer._  
  
Brendon’s heart flip-flops a little. Under a messy cross-out before “her,” he can read the original: “his.”   
  
“Brendon, want lemonade?” he hears Ryan call from inside, and he’s jolted back to reality.   
  
“No thanks,” he calls back, and hastily replaces the notebook. He’s back in his seat, strumming innocently, when Ryan comes back out with a lit joint in one hand and a glass in the other. There’s still something strange happening in Brendon’s chest, but he makes himself remember, it was all past tense.   
  


*****

  
  
The clock on his nightstand reads 3:16 when he gives up on sleep that night. He has a vague memory of his mother saying it takes three days to get accustomed to sleeping in a new place, but it might just be that he slept too much yesterday and hasn’t exactly gotten any exercise today. He scrubs at his eyes, doesn’t bother to put on a shirt before opening his door slowly and padding down the stairs.   
  
There’s light seeping into the living room from the kitchen. Ryan’s sitting there, shirtless and messy-haired, greeting Brendon with a smile.   
  
“Hey,” Brendon says quietly, opening the cupboard.   
  
“Couldn’t sleep?” Ryan asks rhetorically, and scoops up another spoonful of Cocoa Pebbles.   
  
“Nope.”   
  
“First three nights in a new place, my mom always said,” Ryan says around a mouthful.   
  
“Mine too. I think there’s a book somewhere about things all moms should know,” Brendon smiles, and settles himself at the small wood table.   
  
“Your eyes’ll get stuck that way, seventy percent of body heat is released through the top of your head, Band-Aids should be easily reachable at all times?” Ryan rattles off wryly.   
  
“Light a candle when you’re cutting onions, always get a gift receipt, children are faking sick unless there is physical proof in the form of vomit,” Brendon lists. Ryan laughs.   
  
Brendon smiles down at his bowl of Lucky Charms. The silence stretches, companionable and comfortable in a way that Brendon's still getting used to, broken only by chewing and the clink of spoons, until they say goodnight around four in the morning. Brendon falls asleep the instant his head hits the pillow.  
  


*****

  
  
Their days soon settle into a lazy sort of routine. They wake up around ten or eleven. Most of the day is spent swimming, playing video games, walking in the woods, getting stoned, and occasionally working on music. Ryan writes a lot, but doesn’t show them anything; Brendon fiddles with melodies on his guitar. At night, they eat dinner and smoke some more and watch movies until they fall asleep.   
  
More than ever, somehow, Brendon realizes how lucky he is to have friends like Jon and Spencer. He never really appreciated Spencer’s wry sense of humor, or Jon’s way of saying exactly the right thing in any given situation without seeming to try. They’re just easy to be around, easy and accepting even after all the stupid shit with Ryan. Brendon still feels embarrassed about that when he lets himself think of it, but one time when he tries to apologize, Spencer looks at him so fiercely when he says “Forget it,” that Brendon has no other choice.   
  
As for Ryan, things are going better than Brendon ever would have hoped. It’s not like it’s effortless. Brendon still sometimes sees Ryan smiling a little too eagerly, almost nervously, as if to reassure Brendon, or maybe himself. Brendon wants to tell him not to try so hard.   
  
Ryan doesn’t say anything about the song. Brendon assumes he never found it.   
  


*****

  
  
“Whose idea was this?” Jon asks, licking melted marshmallow off his fingers. Brendon raises a hand.   
  
“Genius,” Spencer says fervently.   
  
“Ah, fuck.” Ryan pulls his stick out of the little campfire, waving his marshmallow around to stop it burning. “How the hell do you do this, Bren?”   
  
Brendon looks up from where his marshmallow is turning a light, even gold. “Magic,” he grins. Ryan glares at him.   
  
“Gimme,” Jon says, and grabs the blackened remains from the end of Ryan’s stick.   
  
Brendon carefully places his chocolate bar on the edge of the rocks so it can start to melt, then scoots around so he can take Ryan’s stick. They both go for the marshmallows at the same time, so that their hands brush.   
  
“Sorry,” Ryan mumbles.   
  
“That’s right, leave it to the expert,” Brendon says lightly. Ryan smiles. “Here, you have to find a place where the flames aren’t that high…Right, now just turn it slowly.”   
  
Ryan starts turning his stick unevenly, so that the marshmallow brushes against one of the burning logs. “Shit.”   
  
“Dumbass. Here, let me,” Brendon says, and he places his hands over Ryan’s without really thinking about it. It’s not until he sees Spencer and Jon exchange a look out of the corner of his eye that he realizes, maybe friends don’t do this sort of thing. It’s almost a relief to declare that they’re done, so he can release Ryan’s hands and scoot back to his own place.   
  
Still, he can see Ryan smiling as he takes the first bite, and when he sees Brendon watching him, he grins, his teeth covered in white goo.   
  


*****

  
  
“Where is everybody?” Brendon asks sleepily.   
  
“Ryan’s out on the porch, said nobody’s allowed to disturb him until he’s finished some lyrics. Spencer’s in town for toilet paper,” Jon says. “Wake and bake?” He offers up his half-smoked joint. Brendon flops down comfortably next to him.   
  
“Thanks.”   
  
“No problem. Although at this rate we’re going to be out of weed in a week,” Jon says mournfully.   
  
“We’ll find more,” Brendon says optimistically.   
  
“Mmph.” There’s a strech of silence as they pass the joint back and forth, and somewhere in it, Brendon ends up staring at Ryan’s back through the sliding glass door. He can see Ryan scribbling angrily, crossing something out.   
  
“You and Ryan have been pretty good lately,” Jon comments, following his gaze.   
  
“Good?” Brendon chuckles, because he makes it sound like they’re untrained puppy dogs.   
  
“You know. Cozy,” Jon says, and makes a vague sort of waving motion with his free hand.   
  
“I guess,” Brendon says slowly. “We just…I don’t know. Things are different. Better.” Jon’s watching him intently.  
  
“Don’t let the past stand in the way,” Jon says eventually, and before Brendon can process that particular sentence, Jon’s passing him the last inch of the joint and standing up. “You finish this sucker, I’ll make eggs.”   
  
Brendon sits there long after the roach burns itself out, trying to figure out what he’s missing, watching Ryan’s bowed head as he writes.   
  


*****

  
  
“Guys, seeing as it is rainy, I vote we get really, really stoned,” Jon announces.   
  
“I don’t see the connection, but, motion seconded,” Spencer says, and promptly takes a seat on the couch. Jon runs up the stairs and comes back with his bowl and a baggie, by which time Brendon’s sitting next to Ryan and they’ve decided on “Cabin Fever” as properly ironic viewing material.   
  
The bowl makes the rounds until they’re practically immobile. Spencer ends up lying down, feet over the arm of the couch and head in Jon’s lap. Ryan’s staring slack-jawed at the window. Brendon’s considering the TV screen.   
  
“Guys,” he says. “Guys, what if a guy with a dog with a virus with a…wait. No. What if there’s a virus, and we die?”   
  
“Guys,” Spencer says. “Guys, our name should be Mellow At The Disco. Seriously. Do we ever panic? No. We don’t. We’re totally mellow.”   
  
“I think Jon’s asleep,” Ryan observes.   
  
“See? Mellow.”   
  
“No, but guys, what if there’s a virus?” Brendon says, somewhat urgently.   
  
“I need food.” Ryan pulls himself to his feet with what looks like a huge effort. Brendon follows.   
  
“Ryan? Ryan, I don’t want a virus. And I don’t want to have to light a crazy dude on fire,” he says, and the more he thinks about it, the more worried he gets.   
  
“Cheetos? Pringles? Pirate’s booty?” Ryan muses, staring into the cupboard.   
  
“Virus,” Brendon says firmly.   
  
“Pirate’s Booty. That’s a funny name. No, all of the above. Wait, what are you talking about?” Ryan says, and turns to Brendon with his arms full of plastic bags.   
  
“I’m talking about flesh-eating viruses and dying,” Brendon says, and whatever Spencer says, he is totally panicking.   
  
“Oh.” Ryan considers for a moment, biting at his lower lip. “Don’t worry,” he says eventually, and smiles at Brendon.   
  
“Why?”  
  
“I’ll protect you,” Ryan says, as if it should be obvious. He gives Brendon one last warm smile before heading back into the living room.  
  


*****

  
  
"We need milk and your stupid fake bacon, I'm going out," Ryan says, as Brendon comes into the kitchen.   
  
"I'll go with you, you always get the wrong kind," Brendon mumbles, still half-asleep. Ryan pauses for a second before nodding.  
  
It’s a grey sort of morning, oppressive and muggy, but the woods are still beautiful as they drive down the narrow, meandering road that leads to town.   
  
“Music?” Brendon asks, a couple minutes in, when the silence starts to make the air even more thick.   
  
“Yeah,” Ryan says, and they both reach for the dial at the same time, fingers brushing, and recoil just as quickly. “Sorry,” Ryan mutters.   
  
Brendon flips through channel after channel, finds static and pop and more static, before settling on a classical station. He smiles a little when he recognizes the piece, "Rhapsody In Blue," and starts air-piano-ing in sync.   
  
“They should have piano in Rock Band,” he remarks.   
  
“I’m sorry for being such an asshole when my dad died,” Ryan blurts out, and Brendon’s fingers freeze in midair.   
  
“I. Wow. Okay,” he says tentatively, because seriously, where the  _fuck_  did that come from?  
  
“I’m sorry,” Ryan says again, stronger, like he’s not sure Brendon believes him. “I couldn’t. I just.” He takes a deep breath. “It just made me go…numb. For a long time. Completely shut off. I don’t. I can’t even describe what was going on in my head. Something along the lines of…of nobody being able to…to love me. I’m  _sorry_.”   
  
Brendon doesn’t quite know what to do with that last not-quite-confession.   
  
“It’s okay,” he says softly. He doesn’t know why Ryan brought it up, but it’s okay. Ryan glances over at him, and there’s something Brendon thinks must be frustration in his eyes, a sort of helplessness, like Brendon still needs convincing. “Really, it’s okay,” Brendon repeats.   
  
Chopin plays gently in the background, and Brendon’s seized by a sudden urge to reach out and take Ryan’s hand.   
  
“He used to tell me to stop dressing like a faggot,” Ryan says matter-of-factly.   
  
“I should be the one saying sorry.”   
  
Ryan snaps his head around so suddenly Brendon’s afraid they’re going to go off the road.   
  
“No,” he says vehemently. “Fuck, Brendon, no, that’s not what I meant. You didn’t do anything wrong, you…you never did.” There’s still that veiled frustration in his eyes that Brendon, for the life of him, doesn’t understand.   
  
“Thanks,” he says eventually, and he doesn’t take Ryan’s hand, just curls his fingers briefly over where it’s clenched around the gearshift.   
  
They pull into town not long after, make a quick grocery run, and then go over to the movie store.   
  
“Nothing subtitled,” Brendon says, as they walk through the door.   
  
“Nothing with spontaneous musical outbursts,” Ryan counters. Predictably, it takes them a while.   
  
They’re still bickering happily over the cinematic value of John Waters movies when they walk through the front door, but Brendon hears a snippet of Spencer and Jon’s conversation from the kitchen table.   
  
“…nudge in the right direction?” Spencer’s saying.   
  
“Fucking powerful shove is more like it,” Jon mumbles, and then they’re turning around, looking vaguely guilty.   
  
Ryan and Jon get dinner duty that night, while Spencer and Brendon watch the sun set from the porch.   
  
“How have you and Ryan been lately?” Spencer says, too casually, and it’s so reminiscent of Jon’s question of three days ago that Brendon’s tempted to roll his eyes.   
  
“Fine,” he replies.   
  
“You don’t have to be afraid, you know,” Spencer says.   
  
“Huh?” Cause, really,  _what the fuck._  
  
Spencer hesitates. “You’re not going to make the same mistakes you did before,” has says slowly. Brendon can’t tell whether it’s supposed to be a reassurance, or if there’s an unsaid “or else…” there.   
  
“I have to pee,” he says, and he almost knocks his chair over in his haste to get inside, because it’s just too much, all of a sudden. The air is still close and suffocating, and it seems like everybody knows something he doesn’t, and he’s fucking sick of all of it. He takes the stairs two at a time and scrambles up the ladder to the roof, and there’s a thin breeze blowing, so he can breathe again.   
  
He rests his chin on his knees and tries to calm down. There’s no way Spencer could be  _encouraging_  him to…well. No. There’s no way, there’s no reason to even consider it.   
  
Unless…no. Ryan hasn’t done anything that could be construed as an effort towards more than friendship. He’s just really trying to be  _friends,_  is all. He probably never even got the fucking lyrics.  
  
There’s no reason to freak out. No reason to hope.   
  


*****

  
  
They don’t actually get much done until about two weeks in, when Ryan finally announces that he has some lyrics that are workable. They convene in the music room and Ryan averts his eyes as they all crowd around his notebook.   
  
 _She held the world upon a string, but she didn't ever hold me,  
spun the stars on her fingernails, but it never made her happy  
‘cause she couldn't ever have me._  
  
Brendon knows what it’s about even before he comes to the third paragraph.   
  
 _But who could love me?  
I am out of my mind._  
  
He can feel Ryan’s eyes on him as he finishes reading, waiting for a reaction, but he’s not quite sure how he feels about the song. Spencer and Jon exchange one of those significant-yet-unreadable looks.   
  
“So what do you think for the main melody?” Ryan asks, businesslike.   
  
“Cabaret punk,” Jon says seriously.   
  
Brendon laughs. “Something like this?” he asks, with a grin, and starts improvising on the keyboard, loud and dramatic. He gets into it, bobbing his head in time and snaking his torso back and forth. After a minute or so, though, he realizes he can hear Spencer and Jon laughing, but not Ryan, which is usually a good sign that Ryan’s pissed off and wants to get down to business. He stops abruptly and looks up at Ryan apologetically.   
  
Instead of the expected glare, Ryan’s smiling at him, wide and almost embarrassed. An image of William’s Polaroid flickers unbidden across Brendon’s mind. He pushes it away, clears his throat. Ryan’s smile disappears like someone switched it off.   
  
“Okay, but seriously,” Ryan says.   
  


*****

  
  
Brendon thinks it was Jon’s idea to bring every single horror movie about cabins ever made. Of course, the Evil Dead trilogy doesn’t really count as horror, especially not when he’s stoned, but by the time they’ve worked their way to the third movie, Brendon’s high is mostly gone and it’s completely dark outside. He envies Jon his peaceful snoring. The bit where Ash is in the pit in the ground is totally freaky, okay, and Brendon’s entirely justified in clinging to Spencer like there’s no tomorrow.   
  
“Gerroff,” Spencer grunts. “Was almost asleep.”   
  
Brendon wraps his arms around his own knees instead, then decides another bowl would probably help with his terror. But by the time he’s finished packing it, Spencer’s out for the count, leaving only Ryan, whose right eyebrow is raised into his hairline, his mouth gaping open as if to enquire how special effects could possibly be this bad. He makes grabby hands at Brendon, and they share two more bowls before returning their attention to the movie.   
  
“Necronomicon,” Ryan says slowly.   
  
“Necronomnomnom,” Brendon giggles. Ryan stares at him, mouth curving slowly into a smile until he’s laughing too, loud enough to wake Spencer, who flips them off and shambles away, up the stairs. Jon’s still snoring. They learned long ago that nothing short of a sonic boom will wake Jon if he falls asleep stoned.   
  
So it’s just the two of them, essentially, huddled close in the dark as they finish the movie in silence. They stay there long after the credits start, too lazy to move. Brendon doesn’t quite know when Ryan’s head ended up on his shoulder, but he doesn’t mind. He can smell Ryan’s shampoo.   
  
“You smell good,” Brendon says softly,   
  
“I know, you told me,” Ryan replies through a yawn.   
  
“When?”  
  
“That first day. You know,” Ryan says, and makes a contented little noise as he burrows deeper into Brendon’s neck.   
  
“Oh. Right,” Brendon replies.   
  
They wait. Brendon’s talking himself into moving when Ryan speaks again.   
  
“Bren?” he asks, barely a whisper.   
  
“I know,” Brendon says. He doesn’t know what he knows, but…he just does.   
  
  


*****

  
  
“I’m going for a swim before dinner, anybody want to come?” Ryan asks.   
  
“Sure,” Brendon says.   
  
“We’ll be down in a bit, we need to finish this level,” Spencer says, all his attention focused on the TV.   
  
The late afternoon light is just starting to turn golden as they head down the path toward the dock, so that when Ryan stops at the edge to take off his shirt and shorts, the sun makes his skin glow. Brendon’s suddenly uncomfortably warm, so he turns around and quickly strips down to his boxers. When he looks again, Ryan’s standing at the edge of the water, delicately dipping a toe in to test the temperature. Brendon rolls his eyes before getting a running start.   
  
Ryan doesn’t have time to turn around before Brendon hits him, so he shrieks in surprise as he goes flying. They hit the water together, surface sputtering and gasping, with Brendon grinning mischievously and Ryan looking amused in spite of himself.   
  
“You are going down,” he promises, when he’s caught his breath. Brendon laughs and starts backstroking away.   
  
Ryan chases him in a full circle, out into the deeper water where they can no longer stand and back again, until they’re standing on their tiptoes, splashing each other breathlessly. Brendon can’t stop laughing, watching Ryan’s thin little arms flailing in his efforts to move as much water as possible. Without warning, Ryan lunges forward, and Brendon doesn’t have time to react before Ryan’s jumping up and dunking him.   
  
Brendon surges to his feet again, still laughing, with Ryan wrapped around his torso, hands scooping up water into Brendon’s face. He takes a deep breath and tilts forward so that Ryan goes under too, trying to wrestle Ryan away from him.   
  
It all seems impossibly innocent until it just isn’t. They surface again and time freezes, Ryan’s legs entwined around Brendon’s waist, Brendon’s hands on Ryan’s hips, their breath caught in their throats as they realize simultaneously how close their bodies are. He can feel them inhale together.   
  
It’s sudden, dizzying, the surge of longing that rushes through him when he looks at Ryan’s lips, wet and parted, and again when he notices Ryan’s eyes, wide and helpless as he stares at Brendon’s own lips. His skin is warm and tingling where it touches Ryan’s, and his heart is racing, and he can feel this terrifying sense of  _right,_  like he’s coming home instead of possibly fucking up every bit of progress they’ve made.   
  
“Look out below!” he hears Spencer cry from somewhere in the trees, and Brendon and Ryan release each other like they’ve been shocked.   
  
They fuck around for a while, play chicken, but Ryan and Brendon don’t touch again. Through dinner (sandwiches, since they’re feeling lazy) he doesn’t talk, just thinks of the sunlight on Ryan’s skin and those shared heartbeats. Right after dinner, he claims to be tired, and climbs the stairs alone. He pulls himself up onto the roof without really deciding to.   
  
The light is slanting golden-orange over the water, bright enough that Brendon has to hold a hand over his eyes. He lies back against the gritty shingles and lets the last rays of the sun warm him, and he watches as the sun slips down slowly, almost imperceptibly, until everything is blazing orange. He keeps replaying the look on Ryan’s face, but above all, he remembers the feeling of absolute comfort, the warmth that flooded through him when he touched Ryan.   
  
What would have happened if they had kissed? It could have ruined everything, sent them back to caution and awkwardness and uncertainty. And yet…Brendon doesn’t think, somehow, it would have gone that way. He remembers Spencer’s words.   
  
The first chill of dusk hits him just as the knock sounds on the glass of the skylight.   
  
“Hey,” Ryan calls softly, and Brendon smiles as an invitation. Ryan places two blankets on the rooftop before swinging himself through the opening. “Thought you might get cold,” he says, and hands one to Brendon.   
  
“Thanks.”   
  
Brendon scoots over slightly, sitting up with his arms wrapped around his knees, and Ryan sits next to him. There’s silence as Ryan takes in the view, as orange shifts to pink and red, and even with what happened earlier, it’s comfortable, nothing like the tension of…god, it really was only three weeks ago.   
  
Ryan stares down at the smooth surface of the water, then up to where the moon is just starting to show through the darkening sky.   
  
“I used to sleep outside sometimes, when I was a kid,” he says absently. “When things got really bad.”   
  
Brendon watches his silhouette, and waits.   
  
“It was like…when Mom moved out, there were too many memories in the house, I couldn’t get away from them. I didn’t want to be near anything that reminded me of her. So I just snuck outside after dad was asleep and slept in my treehouse. Seeing the stars made it easier.”   
  
“When you have too much going on inside you, you need somewhere for it to go,” Brendon says softly. Ryan nods.   
  
“Remember that night you came over, and we went for a drive?”  
  
“Yeah,” Brendon smiles. It feels like an eternity, not years but decades, fucking centuries.   
  
“I was planning on doing it again that night. It didn’t…I mean. By that time, after a few years of doing that, it always made me feel worse afterward. Even though I couldn’t sleep inside. It was like there was nowhere left to go.” He says it slowly, like he’s not sure how to articulate it. “You were…you were nothing like anything I’d known before. You changed everything.”   
  
Their eyes lock for just a moment too long, and it feels like the first step off the edge of a cliff.   
  
But with the last hint of sunlight casting purple-pink shadows over Ryan’s skin, everything seems far, away, so impossibly distant as to have never existed at all, and the surprised feeling that blossoms in Brendon’s chest isn’t so much hope as certainty.   
  
Ryan catches himself, ducks his head like he’s said something unforgivable.   
  
“Ryan,” Brendon says. “It’s okay.” He doesn’t know how to convey how much he means with the last word.   
  
Ryan looks up at him again, his eyes hopeful, sparkling browngoldamber just like Brendon remembers. They stare at each other for a long moment, and Brendon feels like he’s waiting, but he’s not sure what for.   
  
Maybe Ryan was waiting too, because after a minute he bites his lip, turns away looking frustrated, and mutters, “I should go, I want to do some writing before I go to sleep.”   
  
“Oh,” Brendon says. “Okay.”   
  
He follows Ryan down the ladder, thinking that maybe he’ll watch a movie with Jon and Spencer.   
  
“So. I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess,” Ryan says dully.   
  
“Yeah,” Brendon says, and he wants to stop Ryan as he heads for the door, shoulders slumped, but he doesn’t know what he could say. Ryan stops anyway, one hand on the knob, and turns around with his eyes blazing.   
  
“Brendon, are you stupid? I don’t know what else I can do to fix this. Am I doing something wrong?” he says suddenly, and his voice sounds like it’s on the verge of breaking.   
  
“No, you’re not…what are you talking about?” Brendon asks, bewildered.   
  
“The song. The lyrics you stuck in my bag. I thought that meant…if I fixed this, if I made everything okay…” Ryan hesitates, twisting at his hands.   
  
“Oh,” Brendon breathes.   
  
“I love you,” Ryan says simply.   
  
Brendon can’t move except to let a smile curl across his lips slowly. He can’t think, can’t speak, can’t fucking breathe; after everything, after years of waiting, what else is there to do? It’s all been said.   
  
Ryan moves for him, lunging across the room to hurl himself into Brendon’s arms, and they fucking  _collide_  into the kiss, hands grasping and pulling, every inch of skin on fire, and Brendon can hear this rushing in his ears and the galloping beat of his heart sounds like  _finallyfinallyfinallyIloveyou,_  and like it always does when he kisses Ryan, the rest of the world ceases to matter, ceases to exist.   
  
“I  _love_  you,” Ryan says again, forcefully, into Brendon’s lips.   
  
“I love you too,” Brendon responds, half-laughing with relief, because  _finallyfinallyfinally_  he can say it, say what he’s been waiting to say for fucking  _years._  
  
Ryan’s smiling into the kiss, they both are, arms wrapped around each other as tightly as they’ll go, lips molding together until Brendon can’t breathe but doesn’t care. He can’t touch enough, can’t help himself as he moves his hands over Ryan’s jaw (a day’s worth of stubble) and his neck (pulse pounding below his ear) and his back (every vertebra, every rib) and his stomach under his shirt (barely-there trail of hair, hot skin quivering under his fingers) and he almost doesn’t want to separate their lips to pull off Ryan’s shirt, because now that he’s touching Ryan again he doesn’t know how he ever stopped.   
  
“Bed,” Ryan whispers breathlessly, and they almost trip over the ladder as they stumble to the bed, so that they’re laughing when they tumble down together, Ryan on top of Brendon, their curves and angles fitting together just as perfectly as they always have. Brendon ducks his head to kiss a gentle trail up Ryan’s neck, moving slowly along his jaw to his lips, and then Ryan splays long fingers over Brendon’s cheek and grinds his hips down desperately and Brendon arches up against him, hooks his foot over Ryan’s calf. Ryan fumbles at the hem of Brendon’s shirt, watching him with wild eyes as he tugs it off, and he tilts his hips up again as he leans in to suck at Brendon’s lower lip.   
  
“Slow down,” Brendon gasps out, and Ryan breaks the kiss, panting, resting their foreheads together.   
  
“You’re not backing out on me now, are you?” he breathes, and, still, behind the joking tone is a genuine fear.   
  
“Never,” Brendon promises. “But I just…” he lets the words trail off, brushes his fingers across Ryan’s jaw and down his neck, massaging circles into the round of his shoulder, stroking the dip of his collarbone slowly, reverently. When their lips meet again it’s tender, searching, relearning the textures and tastes of each other’s mouths after all the long months of separation.   
  
“I love you,” he murmurs into Ryan’s lips.   
  
“Love you too,” Ryan smiles back.   
  
They take their time, trading soft, sweet kisses, laughing at how Ryan has to wriggle to slide his jeans over his hips, Brendon running a hand through Ryan’s hair, Ryan nuzzling into Brendon’s neck, until they’re both naked, and then they take a deep breath and part just to look at each other again.   
  
“Did you pack…” Ryan asks.   
  
“Yeah,” Brendon says, because he never got around to taking everything out of his travel bag, thank god.   
  
“I want…I want to show you,” Ryan says hesitantly, and Brendon’s heart pounds even faster, if it’s possible, but he nods.   
  
Ryan preps him slowly, carefully, and the first finger is strange, but the drag of it is eclipsed by the fierce look on Ryan’s face, the hunger in his eyes as he watches Brendon’s reaction. Those eyes are enough to make Brendon ignore the slight discomfort, ignore everything else, because right about now he’d give just about anything to be closer to Ryan.   
  
Still, it  _hurts_  when Ryan slides in. Ryan whimpers when he starts to move, biting at his lip, looking just as overwhelmed as Brendon feels. He’s being pulled apart, ripped inside-out and laid open, until he’s completely and utterly exposed like he’s never been in his life, and if Ryan wasn’t looking down at him like that, like he’s beautiful, he doesn’t know if we would be able to take it. The slight pain, the burning stretch of it, that was expected, but he never imagined, never tried to understand, how difficult it must have been for Ryan to give him this, to let himself be absolutely stripped of anything resembling control.   
  
He knows, then, how much Ryan must have trusted him. There was no way it could have been easy for him, especially (Brendon mentally shudders) those last couple times. And still, he just kept giving himself to Brendon, like he needed it. Like he needed  _Brendon._  
  
Brendon tilts his hips up, because as painfully full as he is, he wants more, he wants Ryan closer, deeper. He can feel hot glowing sparks shooting up his spine, down his limbs, behind his eyes, can feel his heartbeat in his throat with every moan from Ryan’s lips. He’s on fire, skin blazing, every inch of his body humming with feeling, till it’s almost too much to feel all at once, too much, to hear his own low whimpers and Ryan’s gasping breaths, and it’s too much and not enough.   
  
He can feel Ryan getting close, feel him trembling, so he reaches down to curl a hand around himself, groaning helplessly, and Ryan’s answering “Jesus,” makes him look up, lock eyes with Ryan as they move together, faster, closer, and everything is stripped from Ryan’s gaze except pure, naked  _love._  Brendon lets the world fall away as he comes, feeling nothing but blinding heat in his stomach and, even better, a soft glowing warmth in his chest.   
  
Ryan follows a second later, collapsing on top of Brendon, and Brendon can feel his smile.   
  
“I love you,” is the first thing he’s conscious of saying, running a hand over the back of Ryan’s head. “I love you.”   
  
Ryan ties off the condom, throws it away and then cuddles close again, and Brendon thinks of that stupid timeless phrase:  _falling in love._  The first time, it was falling, tripping and stumbling blindly into an endless drop, something terrifying and uncontrollable and, in the end, unbearable. This…this doesn’t feel so much like falling. This is something soft and warm and completely new, like they’ve emerged from something dark and dangerous into vivid sunlight. He buries his nose in Ryan’s hair, inhaling that perfect familiar scent, and he’s so far from falling. This is  _home,_  this is rock solid and welcoming, this is the most sure he’s been of anything in his life. For the first time in years, he’s got his feet on the ground.   
  
“God, I’m so sorry, I’m so fucking sorry for everything,” Ryan whispers into his neck, tracing up and down Brendon’s stomach with one cool finger.   
  
“Fuck, no, I think we both-“ Brendon protests.   
  
“I wanted to tell you so many times-“   
  
“Me too, every fucking time I looked at you, and-“   
  
“I didn’t know what everyone else would say, you were right, I didn’t know if love would be enough to make it work-“   
  
“I hurt you, I was such an asshole, I’m sorry-“   
  
“The look on your face when I told you, I couldn’t-“   
  
“I never actually slept with William-“   
  
They’re tripping over their own words, cutting each other off, half laughing and half crying, slipping in breathless kisses between words.   
  
“It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t…it’s done, it doesn’t matter,” Brendon says eventually, and Ryan takes a deep breath and nods, smiling.   
  
“It doesn’t,” he agrees. “There’s time for apologies later, but I love you. It’s enough, it’ll be enough.”   
  
“More than enough,” Brendon promises, and pulls him close for a kiss.   
  
“Everything’s different now. I love you, I did then and I do now, but it’s different, it’s so much better.”   
  
They lie twined together until the sun starts to rise, running hands over each other's bare skin, kissing softly, leaving everything else behind.   
  


*****

  
  
Brendon doesn’t know what the rest of the song is about, but every time he and Ryan sing the last line together, he remembers those words, that slow imperceptible shift from what they had then, the uncertainty and pain, to what they have now, the warmth and friendship and trust.   
  
“We must reinvent love,” he sings every night, and he locks eyes with Ryan and smiles. 


End file.
